Here’s the truth your current provider benefits from you not knowing: switching IT companies, done properly, involves no downtime for your staff. Not a day, not an afternoon. The systems you use every day – email, files, applications – don’t move anywhere. What changes is who holds the keys and who answers the phone.
Most businesses stay with a mediocre provider for two or three years longer than they should, and the reason is almost never satisfaction. It’s fear: fear of lost passwords, of a vindictive handover, of being without cover in the gap. That fear is rational only if the switch is handled badly. Here’s how it’s handled well.
What you own, and what they must hand over
Everything that describes and controls your systems belongs to you, regardless of who set it up. That includes administrator credentials for Microsoft 365 and every other system, your domain name registration and DNS control, firewall and network configurations, software licences purchased on your behalf, and documentation of your environment. A provider withholding these is holding your property, and reputable MSPs treat handover as a professional obligation – the industry is small and vindictive offboarding gets around.
The one genuine complication is licensing resold through your provider. If your Microsoft licences sit under their agreement, they’ll transfer or be re-purchased under the new provider’s – a routine process, but confirm early who owns what, because it determines part of the transition sequencing.
The handover, step by step
- Weeks 1–2: discovery (before you give notice) — Your incoming provider audits the environment, confirms what documentation and access exists, and builds the transition plan. You don’t tell your current provider anything yet – not out of malice, but because you want the plan settled before the clock starts.
- Give notice — Check your notice period and any exit clauses now, not later. Give notice in writing. From this point your incumbent is contractually obliged to cooperate with handover; most do so professionally.
- Weeks 2–4: parallel access — The new provider takes admin access alongside the old one, deploys its monitoring and security tooling, verifies backups independently, and rebuilds documentation from scratch rather than trusting inherited notes. Staff notice nothing – both providers hold keys during this window.
- Cutover day — On an agreed date, the helpdesk number changes, the old provider’s access is revoked, admin credentials are rotated (all of them – this matters), and the new provider stands behind everything. The cutover itself is an afternoon of administrative work, invisible to your team beyond a ‘here’s the new support contact’ email.
- The first 90 days — Expect a spike of small fixes as the new provider works through everything the old one had learned to live with. A good MSP treats the first quarter as an improvement programme, not just a support handover.
The traps, and how to avoid them
- Domain ownership — If your provider registered your domain in their own name – depressingly common – reclaiming it is your first priority, before notice if possible. Your domain is your email; nothing else matters until it’s yours.
- Backup continuity — Get written confirmation of where backups live, how long they’re retained after exit, and how they’ll be transferred or wound down. You want no gap between the old backup regime ending and the new one being proven.
- Auto-renewal clauses — Some contracts auto-renew for twelve months with a 90-day notice window. Diarise it. Missing the window is the most expensive administrative error in this whole process.
- The nuclear option — If leaving a genuinely hostile provider, your new MSP can prepare a same-day access revocation and credential rotation. It’s rarely needed. It’s reassuring to have.
How to judge providers by how they handle this conversation
Ask any prospective provider to walk you through their onboarding process in detail, and ask your current one what offboarding looks like. The first answer tells you how organised the new firm really is – onboarding is where MSPs are at their most honest, because it’s where their process either exists or doesn’t. The second answer tells you whether your instinct to leave was right.
