Do we have to tell our current provider before we talk to you?

No, and most people do not. An initial conversation commits you to nothing. You only need to give notice once you have decided, and we will help you time it so there is no gap in cover.

What if they will not hand over our credentials?

It is more common than it should be. Most administrative access can be rebuilt because you own the tenant and the domains, not them. It adds time rather than stopping the move, and we plan for it from the start.

Will there be a gap in support?

There should not be. We run the discovery and deployment work in parallel with your existing arrangement, and the switch-over is a date rather than a gap. That is what the notice period is for.

How long does switching take?

Thirty days for a straightforward business, up to ninety for a larger or more tangled one. The constraint is usually your notice period rather than the technical work, which is why the first thing to check is what notice you owe. If something has already gone wrong, or is going wrong now, we can take over straight away — it is messier at the start, because we are discovering the estate as we go rather than being handed it, but waiting is worse.

Switching IT support provider — what actually happens

Most businesses stay with an IT provider they are unhappy with for longer than they mean to, usually because the alternative looks disruptive and they cannot picture the process. This is the process.

Before you speak to anyone

Three things to find out, all of which are in documents you already have.

Your notice period, and whether the agreement auto-renews. This is usually the longest pole. Three months is common; twelve is not unheard of.
Who owns your domains, your Microsoft tenant, and your licences. If the answer is that your provider does, that is a problem to solve, and solvable.
What you are actually paying for. Bills are often built from historical lines nobody has reviewed. Send us the invoice and we will map it line by line at no charge.

What to ask the incumbent for

Ask in writing, and ask before you give notice. A provider's response tells you a good deal about how the exit will go.

A full asset register: devices, servers, licences and their renewal dates.
The network as configured: firewall rules, any static addressing, and what depends on them.
A list of administrative accounts and who holds them.
Domain registrar details and the authorisation to transfer.
Backup arrangements, retention periods and when a restore was last tested.
Any line-of-business application support arrangements held in their name.

If they will not provide these, note it and carry on. Ask for the facts about your own estate rather than for their documentation: a provider's diagrams, guides and write-ups are usually theirs to keep, and ours are no different. What you own, what you licence, who has access and how it is configured is a separate thing, and in practice most of it can be rebuilt from the systems themselves anyway.

What happens with us

Discovery, security baseline audit, a remediation backlog you control, credential transfer and handover, run across roughly four weeks and in parallel with your existing arrangement. The full onboarding process sets out each week.

Your staff notice a new agent on their machine and a new number to call. Anything disruptive is scheduled with you rather than done during the working day.

The two things that go wrong

Credentials withheld or slow-walked: Rarely malicious, usually just unmotivated. We escalate in writing and rebuild access where you are entitled to it as the owner. Plan for it and it costs time, not the move.
Something undocumented surfacing late: An application one person maintains, a server nobody mentioned, a domain registered to a former employee's personal email. This is exactly why discovery comes first rather than being skipped to hit a date.

What we will tell you honestly

If your current provider is doing a reasonable job at a fair price, we will say so. If the problem is a specific service line rather than the whole relationship, that is worth knowing before you move everything — moving one line is cheaper than moving all of it, and sometimes it is the right answer.

Questions people ask

Do we have to tell our current provider before we talk to you?: No, and most people do not. An initial conversation commits you to nothing. You only need to give notice once you have decided, and we will help you time it so there is no gap in cover.
What if they will not hand over our credentials?: It is more common than it should be. Most administrative access can be rebuilt because you own the tenant and the domains, not them. It adds time rather than stopping the move, and we plan for it from the start.
Will there be a gap in support?: There should not be. We run the discovery and deployment work in parallel with your existing arrangement, and the switch-over is a date rather than a gap. That is what the notice period is for.
How long does switching take?: Thirty days for a straightforward business, up to ninety for a larger or more tangled one. The constraint is usually your notice period rather than the technical work, which is why the first thing to check is what notice you owe. If something has already gone wrong, or is going wrong now, we can take over straight away — it is messier at the start, because we are discovering the estate as we go rather than being handed it, but waiting is worse.

Before you get in touch

How we charge What is charged per user, per device and per site, and what moves the number.
Service levels Response and resolution targets, and the hours they run within.
Certifications ISO 27001, ISO 9001 and Cyber Essentials, with the numbers to check them.

Switching IT provider.