Our internal IT person is leaving (or being let go). How do we move to an external provider safely?

IT staff transitions are one of the most common reasons businesses move to managed services, and done in the right order they're smooth. The order matters because one person currently holds the keys to everything, often partly in their head. Ideally, engage the incoming provider BEFORE the departure: their first job is discovery, documenting every system, credential, license, vendor account, and undocumented quirk while the person who knows them is still available to ask. Amicable departures make this easy; even difficult ones usually allow a structured handoff period.

The non-negotiable security step is credential rotation on exit day: every admin password changed, the departing person's accounts disabled, remote access revoked, MFA devices removed, and any shared logins (a bad practice this transition is a chance to end) replaced with individual ones. This isn't an accusation of bad faith; it's standard hygiene that protects the departing employee as much as the business, and a professional MSP treats it as a routine checklist, not a drama.

If the departure has already happened or is hostile, tell the incoming provider immediately: recovering control of an environment without cooperative handoff is a known scenario with established procedures (registrar and tenant recovery, vendor verification, systematic resets). It's harder than a planned transition, but it's Tuesday work for an experienced MSP. Either way, within the first month you should have documentation the business owns, ending the single-person dependency for good.