Decision guide
Switching IT provider without breaking anything
A provider change takes two to four weeks done properly and does not require the outgoing provider to cooperate, though it is faster when they do. The two things that go wrong are missing credentials and undocumented dependencies, and both are found by auditing before you give notice rather than after.
What is actually being compared
- Clean handover
- Outgoing provider cooperates, credentials and documentation transfer, overlap period agreed.
- Uncooperative exit
- No handover. The incoming provider rebuilds knowledge and recovers access independently.
Side by side
How they differ in practice
| Feature | Feature | Clean handover | Uncooperative exit |
|---|---|---|---|
Typical duration | Two to three weeks | Three to five weeks | |
Outage risk | Low | Moderate, concentrated on undocumented systems | |
Credential recovery | Handed over | Recovered through ownership proof with each vendor | |
Discovery effort | Reduced | Full audit required | |
What you should still verify | Everything, handovers are frequently incomplete | Everything |
Before you give notice
- Confirm you own your Microsoft 365 tenant, your domain registration and your backup account. If any of those sit in a provider account, resolve that first, because it is the single most common way a business gets stuck.
- Ask the incoming provider to audit before the switch rather than after. The gaps they find are your negotiating position and your risk list.
- Establish what documentation exists. If the answer is none, plan for a longer discovery period.
What a proper handover includes
- Administrator credentials for every system, transferred and then rotated.
- An asset register with warranty status.
- Network documentation: addressing, firewall rules, what is where.
- Backup configuration and evidence of the last successful restore test.
- A list of third-party vendors, support contracts and renewal dates.
What you are entitled to
- Your data, your tenant, your domain and your documentation. None of that belongs to a provider, regardless of who set it up.
- If a provider is unwilling to release access to something you own, the platform vendor has an ownership-dispute process. It is slower than cooperation but it works.
When the other option is right
If your current provider is doing a good job and the relationship works, switching costs more than it returns. A bad month is not a reason to move. A pattern of undocumented work, repeated faults and vague scope is.
A sequence that avoids surprises
- Audit before you give notice, not after. Whatever the incoming provider finds is both your risk list and your negotiating position.
- Verify ownership of your tenant, domain and backup account first. This is the single most common way a business discovers it cannot leave cleanly.
- Ask your current provider for documentation while the relationship is still good. Requests made after notice tend to be answered slowly.
- Agree an overlap period of two to three weeks. Long enough to catch what was missed, short enough that ownership of incidents stays clear.
- Rotate every credential after handover, including ones that were transferred properly. This is routine hygiene rather than a comment on the outgoing provider.
Questions
Common questions
Still deciding?
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