When working with the right IT company in the Baltimore-Washington area, there’s a clear, time-tested, systematic process that makes any transition process painless. And there will be benefits to switching if it’s done correctly —The transition process allows you to correct IT problems from the past, and with the right IT provider switching will help you better plan for the future.
What Do We Need To Know?
Once you’ve made your decision to switch and transition to a new IT company, you and your staff will want to know what’s going to happen. What will be involved? Will there be any problems? Will you have to participate in any way? Etc… We explain the transition process below.
What Will Our IT Company Do?
Your IT company should start with two things:
1. A Full Briefing For Your Leadership – This is a meeting with the president or CEO of your company explaining what the transition will look like.
2. A Full Briefing For Your Staff – They should brief your entire staff and explain what they’ll be doing, how the transition agent works and what you can expect. Most of the time, IT companies will ask your employees to email in their IT issues, and they respond in a certain period of time. It’s best if they respond right away to your staff’s questions during the transition.
Will There Be Any Downtime?
Your tech service provider should work behind the scenes. As long as they don’t have to replace any equipment, there won’t be any downtime. If your previous IT provider owned your hardware (such as your firewall), then your new IT company will have to replace this for you.
They should make every effort to keep your staff working while they transition you to your new service. They should work seamlessly in the background so they don’t disrupt your workflow.
What Will The Transition Involve?
Your IT company will start by installing a transition agent on all of your computers. This gives them the ability to perform scans and network probes to gather the information they need for the transition.
Although your new IT company will need to monitor your computers during the transition to see how they’re performing, they should ensure that they won’t monitor anything your staff is working on. Plus, they should never remote into a user’s computer without their explicit consent.
What Will We Have To Do?
You won’t have to do anything other than meet with the new IT company. With their transition agent, your new company will perform an audit and gather needed information automatically. The agent presents this information to them in the format they need for a smooth and seamless transition.
You won’t even have to provide them with credentials and IP addresses. But, if you do have information on hand like administrative passwords, this will help your new provider transition your IT faster.
Will We Have Access To Information During The Transition?
Once they gather this information, it goes into their Data Collection System that you will have always have real-time access to. Now you’ll have an up-to-date reporting on all the hardware and inventory on your network.
At this point, they’ll now have all the credentials they need for the transition: DNS, Website, VoIP and more that you might not even know you have. This may include credentials that you handed over to a previous IT provider who doesn’t know they have them or may not be willing to give them up.
Will Our New IT Company Work With Our Old One?
Your new company may need to contact your former one to get all the passwords they need to move forward. Then they’ll put this information into their documentation system where you’ll always have full access to them. You’ll know where all of your credentials are and what passwords you have. You’ll have all the information that you should have had before the transition.
Will Our Old IT Company Be Able To Get Into Our Network?
No. Your new IT provider will find out how they are currently accessing your network and block this. If they placed a tool to remotely monitor your network, it will be removed from every computer. Plus, a firewall will be placed on your network to prevent any unauthorized access.
Will Our Old IT Company Be Mad With Us?
If they are and won’t work with your new IT company, your new company will let them know that you’re transitioning to a new service. But this won’t happen until everything has been put in place. Hopefully, they’ll work with your new tech service company, but if not, you don’t have to worry. With the right IT company, everything will be handled professionally.
How Long Will All Of This Take?
Transitions can be as quick as 3 hours or as long as necessary. The key factors are based on two elements.
1. Is your old IT company going to be amicable about losing their support contract? If not, the transition will be expedited to help ensure that the former IT company doesn’t do anything to negatively impact your business.
2. The complexity of the network is a factor. The more “customized” your system, the longer the transition can take. Again, the transition can still be done quickly. However, to truly master the system and provide expert level support, complexity can extend the transition process.
With proper planning, your new IT company can transition a very large system in just a few hours. Without the access and information they need, the standard pace is two weeks so they can audit the system and gather the information they need. Having overlap and the ability to work with the old IT provider can shorten the time.
What Happens After The Transition?
An audit will be completed, and you’ll be provided with an IT Roadmap. The Roadmap will include things that need to be monitored or corrected. This could take up to a month to accomplish to get your IT system running as it should.
From here you should be provided with a Quarterly Roadmap, Annual Roadmap and 3-Year Roadmap of your IT system. This becomes the outline for what your new IT company will be doing to meet your IT goals. With this outline, you’ll both be on the same page working to accomplish your business goals with the right IT solutions and services.
What Else Should We Expect?
After the transition, you should always have a fast response to your questions or concerns from your new tech support. Ask what their guaranteed response time is (it should be under 10 minutes). This way your users will have easy access to tech support at all times. Your new IT service company should provide each user with a tech support number to call if they are having any issues and make it easy for them to get support.
Switching Isn’t Painful With The Right IT Provider
When you realize that your current IT provider isn’t meeting your business needs, switching is the thing to do. It may seem like too much trouble, but if your IT company isn’t measuring up, it could harm your organization in downtime, lost files and data breaches.
Your business depends on having the right information technology solutions in place to meet your day-to-day needs. When even one part of your IT system breaks down, it can spell disaster. Your customers complain when you can’t provide services, and you miss important deadlines. Don’t be a hostage to an incompetent IT company. Make the switch. It won’t be as painful as you think.
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