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Changing Microsoft partner

Change partner.
Not your entire platform.

Most people who ring us about their partner are not angry. They are tired of chasing. The good news is that changing who supports you rarely means replacing what you built. The work is knowing what you have, getting your own estate in your name, and moving responsibility on a day the service is ready for it.

See how a transition works

If changing would not fix it, we will tell you that.

Sound familiar?

Support relationships rarely fail loudly.

They wear down. These are the things people describe before they decide to look elsewhere.

  • Tickets go in and nothing comes back

    You chase for an update, get a status change, and the problem is still there next week.

  • Only one person there understands your system

    When they are on holiday, so is your support.

  • Every question turns into a change request

    You have stopped asking, which is its own kind of cost.

  • Nobody has ever shown you the documentation

    You are not sure what was built, why, or where the code lives.

  • You are worried about what leaving would cost

    Not the fee. The risk that something breaks and nobody left knows how it works.

  • The project is mid-flight and drifting

    Changing partner during delivery is a different, larger decision than changing support.

What customers say

People who have been through it.

Around 80% of our business comes from existing customers and referrals. Several of them came to us from another partner.

80%

of our business comes from existing customers and referrals.

All customer stories

The best I’ve ever experienced in over 20 years of collaboration.

Programme Manager, Hill & Smith Plc

How a transition works

Seven steps, and the first one may end the conversation.

A controlled handover, with your estate in your name and a clear day when responsibility moves.

  1. Work out whether changing is the right answer: Sometimes the constraint is internal ownership, an ISV or unclear expectations. Changing supplier would not fix it.
  2. Establish which relationship is actually changing: Support, implementation, licensing and ISVs are separate. Changing one does not mean changing all of them.
  3. Find out what you actually have: Customisations, integrations, data, open tickets and known risks, written down where possible for the first time.
  4. Get you in control of your own estate: Tenant, environments, source code, service accounts and credentials in your name, not ours or theirs.
  5. Take the knowledge across: Structured handover where the incumbent cooperates, and a rebuilt picture where they do not.
  6. Move responsibility when the service is ready: Not when the notice period happens to end. Those are different dates.
  7. Stabilise, then improve: First weeks are about proving the route works. Improvement comes after, not instead.

Responsibility moves when the service is ready, not when the notice period ends.

Four decisions

What you are approving and when.

Four points where the transition has to justify itself. Two of them can stop it.

A woman leading a decision review, representing the honest conversation before changing partner
Gate 1Before any transition work

Is changing partner the right move?

We would rather tell you to stay than convert every enquiry into a transition. Sometimes the honest answer is that the problem travels with you.

Confirmed at this gate

  • Which relationship is changing, and why
  • Who owns the decision on your side
  • Whether a project is mid-flight, which changes the risk entirely
  • Notice periods and contractual constraints you already know about

Decision

  • Proceed
  • Assess further
  • Delay
  • Stay put
  • Recovery first

Swipe, drag or use the arrow keys to move between decisions.

Check the fit

A few questions before a transition conversation.

A routing aid rather than a commitment. Your answers come with you into the conversation, so nothing has to be repeated.

Question 1 of 5

0 of 5 answered

1. Which relationship is changing?

Changing one supplier relationship does not automatically require changing the others.

Common questions

Questions leaders ask about changing partner.

Part of the InteliSense Delivery System

A takeover uses the same delivery system as a new build.

Estate discovery, documented decisions, gates before responsibility moves and a named owner for everything inherited. Our delivery approach explains how transition, support and recovery fit together.

How we deliver

A conversation, not a pitch

What is actually going wrong?

Tell us what the last three months have looked like. If the answer is that changing partner would not fix it, we will say so and point you at what would.