Professional Mover's Services

There are a couple of basic considerations when choosing professional movers for your business. Most important is simply that they're familiar with office moves and do them routinely. Movers that spend most of their time on residential moves may not have the right expertise to handle your business move. In addition, if you're moving from one state to another, you'll need a company with appropriate interstate licenses. Not all professional movers have them, so be sure to ask.

Some situations require more specific expertise. Examples include:

  • hazardous materials (chemicals, fuel, etc)
  • extremely large or heavy equipment (manufacturing machinery, pianos, commercial kitchen equipment, safes)
  • sensitive computer equipment (servers, computer storage devices)
  • systems furniture (cubicles)
  • unusual loading requirements (multiple story buildings with no elevator, hoisting required, etc)

If any of these circumstances apply to you, or if there is any other needs that might increase the 'degree of difficulty' for your movers, be sure to address them as early in your search as possible.

Late surprises will always result in additional charges and can possibly delay your move.

How much can you do on your own?

Most professional movers offer varying levels of packing assistance. The most common approach is to have employees pack their own belongings, including desk contents, files, and personal items. Each department is responsible for packing shared files and small equipment. This approach requires only a small amount of time from each employee but drastically reduces overall costs. It also encourages employees take extra care with their most important possessions, avoiding potential problems with movers.

You can have employees do additional packing for further savings. Non-essential equipment and supplies - libraries, break room/kitchen supplies, and decorations - can be packed up days or weeks in advance of your actual move, as can excess inventory or raw materials. If you have a large amount of shared supplies that you don't want your employees to spend time on, you can have movers do the job instead - but it might cost extra.

Note that for manufacturing plants and warehouses, you'll have to do more work. Assembly lines and critical equipment will have to be disassembled by your staffers - you wouldn't want movers to handle that job, even if you could find some that would. For warehouses, your best bet may be to simply rent a truck (or trucks) and move the bulk of the inventory yourself, leaving furnishings and supplies for the movers.

Moving computers

Computers are a special case. If many employees have desktop computers, having professional movers do all the disconnecting and packing can be expensive and time-consuming. Instead, you can save money by having each worker is responsible for disconnecting the various component parts of their machine and packing all the accessories, including keyboard, mouse, and power cords. Actually moving the computers and monitors will be up to your movers. Make sure you ask about their plans for protecting your valuable equipment.

Moving corporate servers and data centers is a much more complicated endeavor. Your internal IT director will have to work closely with the contractors setting up the new location and the movers to coordinate the details.