How to switch IT provider without disrupting the business

Most businesses that change IT provider waited longer than they should have. The worry is understandable: the current provider holds the passwords, knows the quirks and might not be helpful on the way out. In practice, a well-run switch is mostly a matter of collecting the right things in the right order.

What you own, and where it lives

Before talking to anyone, it helps to know which accounts belong to your business. The important ones:

• Your Microsoft 365 tenant, including at least one global administrator account that you control.
• Your domain name at the registrar, and the DNS records that point email and your website to the right places.
• Licences. Who bills you for Microsoft 365, and on what terms.
• Backups. What's backed up, where, under whose account, and when anyone last tested a restore.
• Devices. Which laptops are enrolled in management, and whose management system.
• Suppliers. Internet, phones, printers and line-of-business software, with account numbers.

If the honest answer to any of these is "the IT company has it", that's the first thing to fix, whether or not you switch.

How partner access works now

Microsoft partners manage customer tenants through granular delegated admin privileges (GDAP). It gives a partner least-privileged, time-bound access to specific workloads, and the customer has to explicitly approve it. When you switch, the new provider requests the access it needs and the old provider's relationship is removed. You can see and end these relationships yourself in the admin centre.

That's why the outgoing provider's cooperation is nice to have but not essential. As long as your business controls a global administrator account, the new provider can be given access and the old one can be removed.

A realistic timeline

1. Days 1 to 3: a read-only look. The new provider reviews the tenant, devices, security settings, backups and licences without changing anything.
2. Days 4 to 7: a written plan. What's wrong, what it costs to fix, and what can be left alone, priced in advance.
3. Days 8 to 21: cutover. Admin access moves, the security baseline goes on, laptops are enrolled in batches and staff get a short note.
4. After that: normal support, and a quarterly look at what's next.

Your notice period with the outgoing provider usually runs alongside this. Check your agreement for the length of notice and any exit fees before you give notice.

Things to ask the outgoing provider for

• Every credential they hold for your systems, in a usable format.
• Documentation: network details, firewall settings, software licences and warranty dates.
• Confirmation of when their management tools will be removed from your devices.
• Any backups held in their accounts, and how you'll get a copy.

Ask in writing, and keep the request polite. Most providers handle exits professionally.

Signs it's time

Requests that sit for days. Answers you don't understand. Surprise invoices. No idea who has admin access. A security questionnaire you couldn't answer. If several of these sound familiar, the cost of staying is probably higher than the effort of moving.

How we handle it

Our onboarding follows the timeline above and doesn't depend on your current provider's help. We work month to month with a month's notice and no exit fee, and if you ever leave us you get every credential, document and configuration record we hold. See how we work.

Sources

Checked October 2026.

• Microsoft Learn: Introduction to granular delegated admin privileges (GDAP)