Office relocation is way more complicated because not only you have to pack and move everything safely, but you don’t have the liberty of time. After all you can’t afford to compromise with the productivity of your team and product/service delivery. This makes it even harder than domestic household goods shifting in India. Office shifting is not only about packing and shifting files, folders, PCs and servers from one office to another but it’s about relocating everything from tables to cabinets, server to keyboards, and projectors to cables. Time is very critical; you cannot afford to waste any time in shifting keeping your office work at halt. So you got to find some way to efficiently shift your office to your new location without wasting any extra time, effort or money in the process.
Unlike household shifting, office relocation in India requires more strategic planning and organized approach. There is absolutely no margin for error since the whole operation of your office is at stake. You need to put every thing at place and deal with matters that require a lot of time to get resolved. You got to take care of every small detail during relocation; the key is to manage all the details that too within a limited time.
I have moved my office, although it was local office relocation within Kolkata, but I am sure it would be same for any other city in India. I did some amazing thing during office relocation, but also did many thing wrong and hence I am sharing this post. In this post I am mostly talking about what you should do during office relocation to get it right in terms of cost, safety, saving time and much more.
Start planing for office relocation in advance
First of all, plan for office relocation in advance just like you do it while shifting your household items. When you plan everything in advance, you get the them to look for best professionals in the town and also have the liberty to check rates with a couple of office relocation companies in town. Give a deadline to yourself and your staffs since in this case you only have the office timings for doing this along with your staffs, or you can strategically request them to work little over time for a few days so that they can shortlist their own stuff and ensure everything important is being moved.
You may like to call a meeting and schedule a date for packing, moving, unpacking and re-arranging of stuff. It’s always a good practice to update your clients and associates about the relocation in advance if there will be delays in service and operation. When you update your customer about any downtime in support or service, they will be able to plan everything accordingly. Suddenly broadcasting news or updating your facebook page may not work well for your customers and associates. Keep them posted about your plan for relocating your office.
Move only when new office is ready
Ensure that your new office is ready to resume your work immediately. In simple words; you can manage somehow even if few of your items are not yet received by you in case of household shifting. But in this case, you got to start immediately and can barely manage the situation, since you cannot afford to waste any time. Make sure you’re the basics are setup like desk, chairs, furniture, electrical supply boards, broadband wires, network, other basic necessities like water supply (or a coffee machine if applicable) etc, are in place before relocating.
In our case, we left the old office and moved to the new one which was not yet ready. The guy who was supposed to deliver new chairs, delayed and some of us had to sit on the ground and work on laptop. I know that’s terrible, but some of us liked it too.
Compare rates of movers for office relocation
I will strongly recommend you to go for professional mover packers who are specialized in commercial shifting. Beware of companies which try’s to convince you that they are good at commercial shifting even though they do not have any such expertise. You got to interview them well before making final decision on hiring them.
Hiring a professional specialist will ensure safe and successful delivery of all your office goods. They will take the entire responsibilities upon themselves to coordinate with all the involved vendors, properly disconnecting and reconnecting all your technical stuffs. Backup plans for any mishap, a complete surveillance on logistical tasks.
I wrote a separate post on choosing rightly placed movers and packers companies in India that you should check by clicking here.
Packing, Unpacking and Rearranging office goods
Just try to follow an organized approach to pack all your important stuffs like documents, letters, address books etc, just like you organize your desktop or laptop before formatting, in this regard. Take this opportunity to get rid of garbage’s and unwanted documents. Give a last good look at them, identify them and throw them out. Obviously, when you are hiring movers and packers, they will be taking care of packing everything, but usually it’s a good practice to involve your team members as well so that they can shortlist goods that they want to be packed or left behind.
Get everything labeled properly and use a folder or channel file to classify them into separate department, groups or desk; it will help you while unpacking and rearranging them later at your new office. Unpacking and rearranging may take a little time which is directly proportional to the effort you have given in scrutinizing them while packing and labeling.
Don’t forget to change communication address
Update your new official address in all possible places through which you communicate. Start with your email signature to postal address. You should do it in advance to avoid further delay in updating it. Start informing your associates, clients and partners to prevent any possible interruption at work. Before moving, you may like to paste a label mentioning that office has been moved to the new address, this is to ensure you don’t miss any important documents etc sent by snail mail.
Over to you
Office shifting will be fun when you plan and execute everything properly. But when you don’t have a plan and move randomly, then things may go wrong. Proper planning, choosing skilled movers and packers, involving your team and updating your clients and associates about any downtime due to office relocation are some of the most important things to do. Hope you will use these tips and techniques to do hassle free office relocation.
What else you think one should do during office relocation in India?
