Your 5-Step Guide to Switching IT Companies Smoothly In Nashville, Tennessee
There is no question that reliable IT support is integral for every business — it’s role is critical for business efficiency and productivity.
However, what do you do when you aren’t satisfied with your business’s IT support?
Many businesses stick to their current IT companies even when the provider struggles to meet their needs because of concerns about the difficulty of switching IT companies. Many businesses worry about the process — they think the process of switching IT companies is daunting.
Is that really the case?
- How long and difficult can the process of switching IT support companies be?
- Is there a possibility that your current IT company becomes hostile when they realize you want to replace them?
- What about documentation — how do you ask your current IT team to pass it over to you?
- Will your go-to option IT partner meet the needs of your business?
It can be a nerve-racking process, but listen:
You should switch your IT company whenever it seems fitting for your business.
However, your approach should be appropriate to prevent a situation that leaves your business hostage because the existing IT company has all your network documentation. Let’s start from the beginning.
When Should Businesses Switch IT Companies?
A business can switch its IT companies for a number of reasons. You should consider switching IT companies when your current IT partner:
- Is struggling to meet the IT needs of your business as it expands
- Cannot transfer your business to remote work in time
- Can’t deliver support to the remote workers when the need arises
- Is unable to offer cloud services or cybersecurity tools that the business needs to make remote work effective
At its core, your IT company exists to ensure that your business productivity and efficiency are at their peak. If your IT service provider cannot guarantee peak operation of your business network resources, you should switch to the better option.
However, you need to be strategic with your approach because your current company has admin access and can access everything on your network or IT system.
How Can You Strategically Switch IT Companies?
Your first task in switching IT service providers is to find a new IT partner who can ensure your business’s technology streamlines operations to boost overall productivity.
Once you find an IT support provider that your business can rely on, proceed as follows to ensure a smooth transition:
Step 1: Get Admin Access to Your Network
Hiring third-party IT services gives the tech support company high-level access over your network or system.
In many cases, the IT company has some of your data on their equipment, which makes you dependent on them. Your first step in the transition is to get complete control of your network.
Generally, you should always have admin access to everything on your network to have full control. If you don’t have access, ask your current IT support vendor for logins and passwords so that you have the power to execute administrative tasks.
Asking for logins and passwords if you previously didn’t have triggers some concerns, but you’ll need to access all credentials before switching to a new IT support vendor.
Admin access affords you the ability to:
- Set new user names and passwords
- Access your IT documentation
- Access to all copies of your data backups
- Have access and permission for users
- Control systems across an IT environment
- Prevent damage from external attacks and internal negligence
The central goal for admin access is to have full control over your network or IT system so that you can enforce access rights and permissions restrictions for users.
Step 2: Onboard the New IT Support Team Before Canceling the Existing Contract
Don’t cancel the existing contract before getting a new IT support vendor in place. You need professional help to go through the transition process.
The old and new IT companies need to work together for a smooth transition. Your incoming IT support vendor needs to gather all the necessary information from the existing IT company for a comprehensive onboarding process. In case of anything you don’t understand, your current vendor can offer clarification.
Terminating the old contract before onboarding your new partner leaves a lot of things to chance. For instance:
- The company switching process may prolong when the outgoing team doesn’t work together
- Some critical functions of your network might shut down for days, like email access
- Hostility can be a possibility, and it would be difficult to handle if the new team isn’t already in place
While the relationship between the outgoing and incoming team is always strained, your business needs a professional to go through the transition process.
Step 3: Have Your New IT Company Conduct an Extensive Security Review to Spot any Vulnerability
You want to ensure no back doors on your IT system to reduce the risk of unauthorized system access.
Every IT company or service provider creates an access method to your system so that they can help you achieve an ideal IT working environment. The access method is always a secret way to your network, application, or system that nobody else knows to help implement IT support.
When your current IT company stops serving you, it shouldn’t have access to your system for privacy and security reasons.
Your new IT team should review the cyber security of your network or system to identify backdoors that can give any unauthorized party access to your IT system. Backdoors are prone to abuse and are not easily detectable.
Backdoors pose the following threats:
- An attacker exploiting the access method that your current IT company has been using to support you with
- Giving complete access to your system to a third party you’re not in business with
- Compromising the security of your system from external attack
Unfortunately, some backdoors can’t be disabled, but your incoming IT company can do monitoring to reduce the chances of attack.
Step 4: Notify Your Current IT Firm About Agreement Cancelation
It’s easy to get excited about bringing a new team member on board. However, it’s an uncomfortable situation for the outgoing company.
Unfortunately, it’s part of worklife, and you should go ahead and notify the outgoing IT team about contract termination. When terminating the contract, be sure to do so in the most respectful and humane way possible and avoid negative backlash.
While agreement cancelation should be smooth, hostility can be a possibility, especially when it’s against the outgoing company’s wish. You might face:
- Refusal to hand over documentation
- Denial of access to your company’s IT system or network
- Threats to sue you
Your best shot at dealing with hostility is to have an experienced, new IT team that knows all the transition processes. While hostility is a possibility, it shouldn’t stop you from terminating the current contract if it suits your business.
Step 5: Communicate the Change with Your Employees
Your final step of switching IT companies is to let your team know you have a new IT company to ensure all new protocols are shared.
Communicating about switching IT companies helps your employees have a plan to prevent downtime during the transition.
Sometimes, situations can become sensitive, and you need to make the immediate cutoff. Even then, tell your employees about the new IT company and who they should contact if they need tech support.
How Hard Is It to Switch IT Companies?
The switching process of IT companies shouldn’t be hard.
Yes, the process is a major project, and getting a new provider up to speed can appear impossible. However, the process should be as smooth as possible if your new IT company has experience with the transitioning process.
All you need is to be as strategic as possible. You need to know:
- What to share
- Formulate a communication plan
- Define who’ll be in charge
The process shouldn’t be unnecessarily hard or nearly impossible to execute.
Switch to Kraft Technology Group to Make Your Innovative Technology More Efficient and Productive
You can’t afford to throw dollar bills to a random IT support company and pray for results.
You need teams of hungry perfectionists who invest time and money learning IT solutions so that you can get technologies that make your business more efficient and productive.
You want an IT company that can do the following:
- Deliver customized IT solutions unique for your business to maintain peak operations with your business network resources
- Streamline your operations with technology so that you can boost your business productivity that the previous IT company was not offering
- Be available 24/7, 365 days a year — it doesn’t matter whether it’s holidays or after-hours — you’ll have a partner keeping an eye on your business’s network
- Offer comprehensive IT support to care for your business’s wide range of tech needs
- Help your business to catch up with the rapidly changing tech world
We can help you with all your IT-company-switching processes and deliver solutions that’ll keep your technology running seamlessly. We’ve helped businesses in Nashville with their IT needs since 1993, and we want to help you, too. Contact a technology expert today to help you with all of your needs concerning switching IT companies.
Thanks to the team at Baroan Technologies in New Jersey for their help with this article.
