So, Your Business is Moving ? Moving One's Business: Like Hitting a Moving Target" by P J Gammarano, Sr.; M.A., JD ---->1 January 2023

Moving One's Business: Like Hitting a Moving Target"

???by P J Gammarano, Sr.; M.A., JD --->LINKEDIN article?-->1 January 2023

As based on numerous experiences of moving clients as customers in need of coordinated services here are a few considerations, if your business is in the situation (positive or negative) to be in need of a physical move.?The positive reasons are, of course, business growth in sales volume or production volume--needing larger workspace for employees.?Or possibly upgrading the conditions to a "nicer"/ newer environment which might add employee recreational space.??

In the alternative, the expansion might be an additional location which may or may not keep the present location as headquarters--not necessarily the largest operations center of an entity.

On the other hand, some negative reasons are a downsizing of business--whether it is from decreased sales volume, need to decrease "head count" or total # of employees at a location, or being taken over by another entity which wants only the tangible or intangible assets, and only some or none of the employees.

With any of the above circumstances:

There are similar considerations for a successful (read as: cost-effective, and hopefully "employee-friendly") move:

1 - notifications out to various stakeholders

2 - employee support & cooperation

3 - HQ move or satellite office move ?

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1 - The stakeholders to notify include (in no set order here):

????=?The customer/client base

????=??Vendors

????=?Wholesale or raw materials suppliers (if manufacturing segments

????=??government entities (where registered for business)

?????=??other stakeholders: shareholders, if a publicly held company

It needs to be stated clearly that to the extent possible, confidentiality is arguably preferable for as long as possible, instead of media publicity--as attractive as that may sound at first.?Sooner or later local news is going to pick up the story, but that means your competition gets notified also.?In turn, they (if one or several competitors) can start countermeasures to take advantage of such a period of transition.?In the goods supply industries, this means they're being/becoming ready with product orders that can't be filled in time by your operations for that customer's uses.?In the services industries, timeliness of task completions is still a factor--and goes toward overall evaluations.?That translates to eligibilities for contract renewals.

2 - Attaining employee support & cooperation is one essential element.?It is not quite a secret military operation, but the closer in discipline that your employees can offer, the better the likelihood of success.?The parameters of confidentiality need to be laid out for every employee involved.?Their own "stuff" may have to be packed up for at least one day, and how to handle that business disruption goes with wise planning.

Offering remote work tasks to the extent possible may work for some business types but not others, in whole or in part.?This is where executive leadership needs to be at the forefront, so as to reach across the various business units or segments.?Distributed messages on the need-to-know AND nice-to-know basis often spell the difference between project success and project failure.

It is the opinion of this author (from considerable experience on diverse global projects in procurement and in telecommunications) that over-communications is generally more desirable than under-communication.?Sometimes a "nice-to-know" memo becomes a "need-to-know" memo in later aspects of the project.

3 - An early timeframe question is whether this is a headquarters move or a satellite office move ?

If its a headquarters move, one desirable option might be to leave a skeletal presence if at all possible, and expand to the other location--leaving at least some continuity.

Even if it might be a temporary move due to fire, flood or other natural disaster, one should ask, is the business ready???

Question:?When does this sort of temporary move happen ???

Answer:?In emergencies !

Take 9-11-2001 as an example of business interruptions.

Such interruptions of entities occurred not only inside the Towers but also with the many hundreds of businesses in the surrounding blocks as clearly catastrophic on every level.?For schools, all activities had to stop before alternative locations were figured out.?Retail businesses were literally buried in rubble.?Various types of offices had records destroyed (unless backed up on internet files, or offsite hard copies), and it all became a global lesson (from this strictly-business aspect only) on the wisdoms of document scanning into cold storage nd / or secured internet databases.?Telecom installations in that Ground Zero area experienced many numerous setbacks of destruction on the levels of major earthquakes.

Can such disasters happen again, whether human-planned or from natural causes ??The obvious answer is yes.?While the key is preventive planning, damage mitigation measures also need to be in place.

For one positive business example in the 9-11-2001 realm, offsite office space was immediately secured for almost an entire building of over 5,000 employees when the HQ of American Express had to be relocated with no delay.??

Such implications of physical moves per se following disasters are significant for just about every business type, and include public sector agencies.?It goes far deeper than the postal mail carrier simply having to re-route the daily mail package deliveries & mail pieces.

So, back to the situation of a site lease being terminated, or a more fortuitous situation of having a great new site that the employees are going to love.?Unlike the popular junk removal company?commercial ads, one doesn't simply snap fingers and whistle to get it all to be effective. Even when the buck stops moving, it can't be in the hands of one person's transition list, once the project is generated and shared with a moving committee.??

There should be lists (already in place/ ready for updates) of:

=?Telecomm components (voicecomm & datacomm) /equipment

=?Billed accounts,?

=?project initiatives in progress?

=?tax implications of the moving project

=?Contact info?- notifications

=?Handling accommodations of any special needs (employee, equipment)

=?Contract requirements:?a review of all relevant agreements (leasing, technology, supply, etc.) is called for--sooner than later !

All of the above "factors" in a move involve logistical challenges--of not only moving the assets with physical loss avoidance, but keeping business levels up while in transition to protect profit margins and/ or solvency as the case may be.

The bvisusiness move per se might be tangible or intangible from the customer/client perspective, depending on the nature of the business or agency.

Drafting a written planned timetable is another project essential.

In closing, the Covid pandemic ordinances imposed yet another aspect of business continuity planning in its various forms.

If you are reading this in advance of any planned business-oriented move, all the best in avoiding Murphy's Law !

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Prof. P J Gammarano, Sr.; M.A., JD???

Health Educator,?and?former very-large institutional Risk Manager / Safety Manager / Contracts Associate?Director, inter?alia

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LinkedIn.com member?with 70+ article postings

Author of?-?

"Teaching: Not For Dummies // Substance Abuse Awareness: A Guidebook"

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Publisher?-??https://www.XLIBRIS.com