How to Move a Business to a New Location

It doesn’t matter whether you are about to grow or expand your business or just want to switch to a more practical location for better operational efficiency. What matters is that you have chosen the right moving partner for your business. A packing and moving company that knows how to move business to a new location whether it is within the city or across interstate borders, can help you out tremendously. You can keep your business functional more or less during the moving process.

You will also be able to keep the downtime to a bare minimum which is going to translate into better goodwill and a constant inflow of income. You just have to make sure that the business movers have the skill, experience, knowledge, and efficiency to pull this off.

10 Tips to Move Your Business to a New Location

The following section is going to give you some very useful tips on how to move your business to a new location. Let’s begin:

Analyze Your Old and New Office Spaces

You are going to accomplish a lot by analyzing the space that you are currently operating from. It will help you come up with a list of items that you need to move to your new location without any compromises. It will also help you ascertain what items can be replaced or probably move to your new office gradually or bit by bit.

Analyzing your new office space is going to give you a clearer picture of how much amount of money you will have to spend on making the place functional from scratch. It will help you understand where all the utilities are going to go in addition to all the important electronic gadgets that you might have to install before you can start working from that new space.

This will help you start an efficient and functional office right from the first day. It also sheds light on the time that it is going to take for you to complete this move in addition to several factors such as the packing supplies, the number of people that you would require to help you with the move, the size of the moving vehicle, the number of trips that you might have to carry out to complete the entire process, and many other aspects as well.

Come Up with a Budget for The Move

This is regardless of whether you have chosen to go for the services of a packing and moving company in UAE or not. You don’t just have to determine the budget for acquiring the new office space but also carry out the move of your office equipment. If you decide to move your business to the new location all by yourself, you will have to bear the following expenses:

• Packing supplies such as containers, boxes, wrapping paper, packing tape, and more
• Moving supplies such as planks, moving straps, dollies, bars, ropes, and movable carts
• You will also have to hire a moving vehicle and the choice of driving it yourself or picking a driver for it will be entirely yours
• In addition to this, you will have to consider the fuel expenses
• Food and other utilities for any of the staff members who decide to volunteer to drive the vehicle to your new office

Buy or Lease The New Property

This is going to impact your business finances significantly. This decision should be taken after considering all your financial limitations, commitments, potential investments, and also your net income. Whether you decide to expand your business in the future or not is also going to determine this decision.

For example, if you want to keep aside a certain amount of capital for expansion and diversification, you will have limited resources to buy a property for your new business. In such a situation, you might want to consider some kind of loan or credit. This will require you to evaluate all the sources of finance that are at your disposal at the moment.

Research Your Locations

You can never choose a new business location without having done proper research. For example, if you want your consignment delivery trucks to be able to access your warehouse or storage facility, you would want enough parking space close to your new office location.

You will also want a higher degree of convenience in the form of better and faster connectivity such as various modes of transport, more public utilities, a less congested road network, solar-powered roof, proximity with all your clients and suppliers, ease of shipping, advantages associated with special economic zones if applicable, and the like.

Set a Definitive Timeline

Before you hire a packing and moving company, you will also have to consider the timeline for the entire move and the number of days that you can remain out of business. There will be a considerable amount of time that will go into transitioning from the old place to your new office.

Moving all your assets and doing renovations in your new office is going to take up a lot of time. Making phones and internet connectivity available in your new office building is also going to take time. You will have to set up different cabins, rooms, and other workspaces for every job holder in your organization.

Assigning different tasks to all your teammates and associates is going to help you come up with a practical timeline that you can stick to. You will also have to find an office mover in the UAE that can adhere to your timeline without causing any ripples or requesting you to change it to his availability.

Build Your Office Inventory List

Building your office inventory list is very important and it gives you a lot of clarity about the cost that you will have to bear for this move. There will always be a few items that you would want to get rid of before you move to your new office location. If you are in the process of expanding your operations, you would want to invest in additional office supplies, equipment, machinery, and other movable assets.

In the process, you will be switching from several outdated appliances and gadgets to a list of brand-new gadgets in your new office. It will require serious consideration and a massive investment as well. This is a cost that is, in most cases, completely unavoidable. It will also give you more clarity as to which pieces of furniture and equipment you want to spend money on to move to your new office and which ones can be left behind or donated or probably sold off at a reasonable price.

Consider a Gradual Move

If you are a large organization, it is advised that you move your business to your new location bit by bit. It is going to be a gradual process and the downtime can vary for every department. It also depends on the amount of work that you can delay for a later stage.

Also, when you choose the gradual move option, you can keep a few of your departments always working while the rest are in transit from your old office to your new location. This reduces the downtime of your business as a whole, all the while keeping you in touch with the latest developments in the market and your industry.

This way, it is possible for you to get your business back on track faster and without missing out on any critical development.

Communicate with All Your Departmental Heads

When you are in the process of packing and moving your departments to your new office building, it is better to keep the heads of all the divisions in the loop. You need to have clear-cut communication with everyone who will be directly involved in the process.

If you choose to go with a professional business mover in the UAE, it is better to appoint one individual personnel for every department that you have in your company. This applies specifically to large-scale enterprises.

Of course, if you have a small company, one moving professional can be in charge of several of your departments at the same time. It is important to divide tasks based on knowledge and expertise among all your associates, team members, and moving professionals. This not only simplifies the work but speeds it up significantly. Everyone can work best according to their abilities and talents.

Storage Needs

A lot of CEOs and managers forget to consider this aspect quite frequently. There will be certain office supplies, pieces of equipment, and furniture as well that you will not be able to transport all at once. You might require special storage for them until your new office becomes functional again or operational enough to house this equipment and make them run efficiently.

You might need to install a support system or a full-fledged infrastructure for certain machines or equipment that you require for the daily functioning of your business. Until that is done, you might need to store those critical pieces of equipment in a dependable and affordable storage facility.

You will also have to make sure that the storage facility or unit is close to your new office location and easily accessible by all the authorized personnel working in your office. Make sure that it is waterproof, has state-of-the-art security features, and does not allow any pests to intrude.

Update Your Business Info with Stakeholders

This is when you inform everyone that you are about to move your business from your old location to a new one. All your stakeholders including your customers, partners, investors, associates, and remote team members should be informed about this big change. Update your information on the company’s website as well. Make sure that the authorities are notified about this same including the income tax authority, local municipal offices, and other similar government bodies.

Let’s Wrap It Up For You

The bottom line here is that you should not make this decision in a hurry. It needs to be well-planned. You need to take out at least three or four months to be able to organize every little resource that is going to go into enabling you to move your business as it is to its new location. This applies specifically to a large business. However, if you have a small business, all the operations mentioned above will be scaled down to suit your needs. The key here is to imbibe as much knowledge about business moving as possible. The blog here was a humble attempt at making that possible for you. Happy moving!