Managed IT
IT Project Management Services for Dealerships: Relocations, Remodels and Acquisitions
A project manager, a plan with an owner for every task and the technicians to finish it, so your own IT team can keep answering tickets.
IT project management services give a dealership one project manager, a written plan with an owner for every task, and the technicians to carry out a relocation, remodel, acquisition or system change. Helion Technologies runs these projects for car and heavy truck dealers.
Last updated: November 10, 2026
Why IT Projects Stall When They’re Run Between Tickets
Look at the list on the left. Every item on it is urgent to somebody, and every one of them lands on the same desk as the project. An in-house IT team spends the day putting out fires, which is the job. As Erik Nachbahr, our founder, puts it, an in-house team can’t pull off a relocation and keep the help desk running at the same time.
So we bring dedicated project resources. A project manager plans the work, our technicians do it, and your team keeps the stores running. It’s scoped as its own project, separate from day-to-day managed IT for dealerships, and it works the same way for a single rooftop or for IT for dealer groups that keep adding stores.
Tickets don’t wait. Neither should the project.
The projects
Which Dealership IT Projects Need IT Project Management Services?
Any project with a fixed date, more than one vendor and a store that has to keep selling while it happens. Here are seven we plan for. Each one gets a project manager and a written plan. Most of them have a page of their own, linked from the project name.
| Project | What the project covers | What our project manager owns |
|---|---|---|
| Relocation or new rooftop | Circuits, data jacks, network, Wi-Fi, phones and logins in a building the store hasn’t opened yet | The schedule from the blueprint to opening morning, and every vendor on it |
| Remodel with a temporary trailer | Two moves: out to a trailer on the lot while the building is gutted, then back in when it’s done | One plan that covers both moves, so sales and service keep running at each address |
| Acquisition | A store you just bought, with its own network, accounts and vendors, brought onto your standard | The order of work from the buy-sell to the day the store runs like your others |
| DMS conversion readiness | The dealership’s side of a DMS change: network, phones, devices, users and printers | Your team’s decisions, made on time, while the DMS provider’s team converts the data and takes the store live |
| Microsoft 365 consolidation | Mailboxes, files and accounts from separate tenants moved into one | The user list, the licenses and the cutover plan, store by store |
| PC refresh and Windows 11 | Replacing aging computers across sales, F&I, the office and the shop | Which machines go first, when each department swaps, and how each old drive is wiped or destroyed |
| Network or phone system replacement | New firewalls, switches, access points or a new phone system across one store or many | The cutover order, store by store, timed around the hours each store is open |
Not sure which one you’re facing? A remodel, an acquisition and a DMS change can land in the same year. Our DMS conversion checklist and the post on IT in expansions and remodels cover two of them in more detail.
What you get
What Do Helion’s IT Project Management Services Include?
The same seven things on every project, whether it’s one store’s PCs or a new rooftop. The scope changes from project to project. The way we run it doesn’t.
Rex Marchant, Vice President of Service
“IT needs to be at the table of the blueprint phase.”
The project sheet Seven things every Helion project includes
Owner One project manager who keeps the schedule
One name. Our project manager keeps the schedule and coordinates the carrier, the low-voltage contractor and the DMS provider, so your GM isn’t chasing each one. When a date moves, you hear it from the project manager, along with what else it pushes back.
One name on the schedule.
Plan A written plan with an owner on every line
It’s written down. Every line has a name on it: ours, the carrier’s, your contractor’s, the DMS provider’s, the manufacturer’s, and a couple of yours, since nobody else can pick the opening date or sign off on the floor plan. That’s how you catch the task two vendors each assumed the other one had.
If it has no name, it isn’t planned.
Early A seat at the table while plans are on paper
That’s Rex’s line on the left. Moving a data jack on a drawing is a pencil change. Once the walls are closed, it means opening one back up. So we sit down with your architect, your builder or the people working the buy-sell while things can still change.
A pencil beats a drywall saw.
Orders Long-lead items ordered first
Circuits first. The carrier sets the install date, so the order goes in as soon as there’s an address. Licenses and any equipment with a long wait go in the same early pile.
Order what you can’t rush.
Testing Built and tested before anyone depends on it
Before the doors open the network is up, each user’s login has been tested from the new location, and the printers have printed. Small stuff? Sure, until a deal jacket won’t print. What we’ve learned across more than 2,000 dealerships, from port placement to shop layout, goes into the plan before the doors open.
Test it where it’s used.
Day one Technicians on site and a help desk that knows
When the project scope calls for hands in the building, our technicians are on site for the cutover. If your stores use our dealership help desk, it gets briefed on the project ahead of time, so when the service manager calls about a printer that first morning, the person who answers already knows what changed.
The help desk hears it first.
Close-out Records updated and the old gear handled
The last box gets unpacked and there’s still work left. We update the network documentation and the IT asset records, wipe or destroy the drives in whatever is being retired and write down how, and help cancel the circuits and licenses you no longer need.
Closed out on paper.
Projects Run by a Team Behind 2,000+ Dealerships
A dealership may go through one or two moves in its life, or none. Erik puts the choice plainly. “Do you want to do this for the first time or do you want to have people that are experienced doing it?” Two groups in our case studies show what that looks like. A 23-store auto group in New England went through 4 dealership acquisitions and 10 store relocations with us without IT becoming a bottleneck. A group of roughly 30 stores kept its own IT director, and the projects and the heavy lifting run through Helion.
Dates and Rules a Project Plan Has to Respect
Some deadlines in a dealership project don’t come from you or from us. A software maker ends support for an operating system. A license has to be bought first or a migration fails. A federal rule asks covered dealers to adopt procedures for change management. The cards on the right are three of them, each from the source.
A good plan starts with these and works backward. When Erik talks about what Helion finds in dealerships, PCs that never moved from Windows 10 to Windows 11 come up, and so does network gear the manufacturer no longer updates. That’s a PC refresh with a real deadline behind it, and our post on Windows 10 extended security updates covers the options.
Plan around the dates you can’t move.
FTC
Among the safeguards Section 314.4(c) of the Safeguards Rule lists for the dealers it covers are to “Identify and manage the data, personnel, devices, systems, and facilities” the business runs on, and to “Adopt procedures for change management.” A store move or a new system changes the devices, systems and facilities that list names. Read the rule.
Change management is in the rule.
Microsoft
Microsoft says Windows 10 support ended on October 14, 2025, and that it “no longer provides software updates, security fixes, or technical assistance” for Windows 10 PCs. Its Extended Security Updates program can buy time for machines that can’t move yet. Read Microsoft’s page.
The refresh has a deadline.
Microsoft 365
Microsoft’s guide to cross-tenant mailbox migration, written for mergers and divestitures, says the move needs a per-user license (a one-time fee) and that “Migrations fail if this step isn’t completed.” Licenses go on the project plan before the first mailbox moves. Read Microsoft’s guide.
Licenses before mailboxes.
How Helion Runs an IT Project
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1
Scope it
We walk the store or the plans with you, list what’s changing and what isn’t, and agree on what done looks like before anything gets ordered.
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2
Plan it with owners
The project manager writes the plan, puts a name on every task and gets the orders that take longest placed first, starting with circuits and licenses.
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3
Build and test
Our technicians build the network and the workstations, plus the phones when we run them, and test each one where it will be used, before anyone needs it.
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4
Cut over and close out
Technicians are on site for the cutover where the scope calls for it. Then the records get updated, the old equipment gets handled and the project is closed out.
Common Questions
Have a project coming up?
Our complimentary IT and cybersecurity assessment reviews the technology, security, vendor spend and compliance standing of the stores you run today, with the findings in writing. Already know the scope? Get a price quote.
What do IT project management services include for a dealership?
When should IT get involved in a new store or a remodel?
How long does a dealership IT project take?
Can our own IT manager stay in charge?
Why consolidate Microsoft 365 after buying a store?
Does Helion handle the DMS conversion itself?
Tell us what’s coming. We’ll put a plan and a name on every part of it.
Request a Complimentary Assessment →