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How long does onboarding take?
When we start to work with a new customer, we are often asked about how long onboarding will take.
It’s a good question – especially when you are planning to switch IT providers and want to understand what to expect in terms of timelines and disruption. The straight answer is; it depends. But there are some basic factors that can influence how long it will take and we will walk through those in this article.
In most cases, onboarding will take anywhere from 2 to 8 weeks, this depends on the size and complexity of your current setup, coupled with its condition. It doesn’t mean we won’t support you until its completed, it’s just a work in progress.
Onboarding isn’t just about getting access to your equipment and credentials, it’s a structured process designed to properly investigate and understand your existing setup, address the risks and bring everything up to a safe and supportable standard before we can begin ongoing support.
We don’t want to rush this or squeeze it in amongst other everyday tickets, we want to take the time to get it right which will pay dividends later down the line.
As an example, some of the stages of onboarding may include the following…
- Initial discovery – this may be a manual process, or we could add hardware or software to your network to investigate what could be waiting for us.
- Audit & Review – armed with the facts from above, we can start to form a plan based on the risks and inconsistencies we may have found.
- Remediation – Fixing the problems, getting things up to speed.
- Deployment of tools & Systems – We will need to not only install our support tools, but also those that may be included in whichever support bundle you have chosen.
- Provide a more reliable service for our customers.
We believe this is the fairest way to manage our pricing structure — incremental, transparent, and planned in advance.
All of these stages take time and care to complete and it’s best to pause and take stock before moving to the next – sometimes one change can influence the steps we need to take in another, and this is not always predictable.
No two businesses start from the same place; the timeline can be influenced by many things including..
- How many users, devices and locations you have
- How good your existing documentation is
- General condition of your setup (Is it up to date or legacy)
- How good your security and backup is
- How quickly we can get you to make decisions. As we progress through the stages, sometimes, we need you to make choices.
It’s probably clear by this point that a well maintained and simple system will take a lot less work than a poorly maintained or complex setup to bring up to standard.
We plan the process carefully to minimise disruption as far as possible. A lot of the work goes on in the background without you noticing it day to day. Where we need to make changes which will affect you, we plan this with you in advance.
Why taking the time to complete this matters
Some careful planning and effort now will pay dividends in the long run, were not just here to support you now, we are in it long haul to help you grow. Proper onboarding results in your business benefiting from:
- Fewer issues in future
- Swifter and more effective support
- Enhanced security and resilience
- Clear documentation and visibility
In summary
Onboarding isn’t a quick fix, and neither should it be. A well planned and executed onboarding typically does take a few weeks, but it plays a critical role in the quality of the support that follows. If your considering changing IT provider, it’s worth asking not just how long onboarding takes, but also how will it be done.
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networks@soundnetworks.net08:30 AM - 17:00 PM
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