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The Uprising of Virtual Business Offices
Virtual Business Offices have been growing in popularity exponentially for the past few decades. If you have any reasons to believe that a physical office is not for you, then here is a solution perfect for you. Welcome to the modern world where convenience has never been so… convenient!
The Beginning
It is unknown who originally coined the term “virtual office”, but there are two feasible possibilities. One being that in 1989, Ralph Gregory from Boulder, Colorado created The Virtual Office Inc. He built the business to work from home so that he could spend time with his children. However, there is record from 1982 in an article that a John Markoff mentioned “virtual offices”. Markoff wrote “A virtual office would be built around a portable personal computer and local area network that would expand working horizons dramatically”. Regardless of which is the true origin story, the idea of virtual offices have been around for over 30 years. Working away from the site would begin the journey towards convenience for commuters.
The Significance
As time goes on, cities become overwhelmingly populated. This causes difficulty travelling everyday to get to work. Sometimes a simple 20 minute commute to work can turn into 60 minutes if the traffic is bad enough. Perhaps this isn’t enough to convince you of the convenience of virtual offices. Imagine you are located several miles away from your business to the point that commuting to work just isn’t a possibility, and there is no option of moving closer to the location. A virtual office is just what you need. This allows you to work from home for a business that may be across the country should that be the case.
The Advancement of Virtual Offices
In the present day, virtual offices are very common. Due to overpopulation in some cities, commuting is quickly going out of style. Residents are constantly searching for ways to simplify the travel. Virtual offices have risen to popularity because of this issue of inconvenience.
It is not too late to get your virtual office! Here at The Rostie Group, we have many options for you to select from. Check out our web site here! Try it out and see how you can take care of business from the comfort of your home. Keep your business up to date with modern trends in order to compete! Don’t forget that a virtual office can benefit your clients and business partners as well. Making you look more professional and reliable as an employee or employer.
Cloud Virtual Office
Why do you need the Cloud to get your Virtual Office?
There are certainly advantages when looking at Cloud based system: It’s constantly updated with no need for your input, and it may be more efficient.
But of course, we need to look at the disadvantages as well:
It’s automated, there are no humans in most of the process, so if something goes wrong, it can go really wrong. Bugs in the system can go undiscovered for days or weeks, and some things may just not be possible for an automated system, like they can be for a person.
It also lacks personality. We are all just so sick and tired of speaking to machines all day, and unlike how Google is trying to push Duplex as the future, we think the future will continue to be based on human interaction. It’s just so much more pleasant to get a human on the other side of the phone, rather than a machine. No matter how smart it may be.
Additionally, when setting up a Virtual Office, it is just as if it was on the Cloud anyway. It works for you remotely. But you can rest far more assured that there are people on the other end making sure that everything is running correctly, and that your clients have the best experience possible.
In the end, “the cloud” is a very nebulous term. It has undeniable and positive attributes, and can help businesses grow at an unprecedented rate. But just as any other form of progress, it has it’s drawbacks. You’ll have to decide whether a simple robotic voice can be the thing that helps your business, or if the human touch just can’t be replaced.
When you finally you want your customers to have the best experience when they call in, then take a look at our Virtual Office packages, and don’t leave the future of your business up in the clouds.
The Anatomy of a Virtual Office
A Virtual Office is generally considered to be a package that allows the purchaser to use a business centre’s mailing address as if it were their own. These packages frequently also include services like live reception, a local number, and meeting room hours.
What a virtual office really is, though, is globalization writ small. How we conduct business has been fundamentally changed since our parents’ time, and the Virtual Office is a very poignant indicator of that. Companies, depending on the industry, can no longer afford to operate solely in one geographic area. In 2018, this expansion is also fundamentally internationalization, in a way that did not occur in, say, the 1950s – this presents numerous opportunities for firms; however, it also presents challenges. The Virtual Office is a symptom of this internationalization, and it arose in response to perhaps the largest of those challenges. For while, a business can be international and exist in many places at once, especially if it does not sell a physical product, its staff and its offices cannot be.
Enter the Virtual Office. They were first conceived as a way for companies to expand to other regions without having to hire local staff or leasing office space- perfect for branching out quickly into new markets. They’re still used for this today- people like seeing that the company they’re doing business with has a local address and phone number- even if that company is actually based half a world away.
So, Virtual Offices get used by companies who want to have a presence in other markets. But if you’ve heard of a Virtual Office before, it probably wasn’t being used that way. By far, the most frequent users of Virtual Offices are home business owners. With the advent of the internet, you no longer necessarily need a brick-and-mortar location for your business. People work from home much more frequently now than ever before, and Virtual Offices were enthusiastically adopted amongst that demographic.
Home business owners choose to work from home- but they may not want their clients to know that. Virtual Offices are the perfect fit for that sector; the convenience of no commute married to the outward professionalism of having live receptionists and an address that isn’t in a residential area.
Virtual Offices are the natural response to a variety of factors present in today’s business climate- they help new businesses look legitimate (previously very expensive), help others expand to new markets, and demonstrate that the business world’s borders have less and less to do with imaginary lines on a map than ever before.
The Rise Of The Remote Worker
Even with rising unemployment, the number of remote workers continues to climb according to the Dieringer Research Group Inc.
Demographically…
What does the average teleworker look like? Would you have guessed, 40-years-old and at least a college grad? Half of the teleworkers out there have a college degree, on top of that 25% have a post-graduate degree in addition to college. Teleworkers are mostly knowledge workers. The option to telework is increasingly offered to salaried employees (97%); but is few and far between for workers earning an hourly wage (11%).
“Home” is less Popular
“Home” still tops the list of locations that teleworking occurs, but “satellite center” and “hotels” are on the rise. Unfortunately, teleworking while “on vacation” is on the rise too – a practice that lowers the resiliency of workers, and leaves them tired and less productive when back from their (theoretical) vacation. For the first time “co-working office” was given as an option to where teleworking occurs, 12% of teleworkers confirmed that they use a co-working space.
Teleworking is a Reward
Employers see telework as a benefit to employees, and employees are in agreement viewing the ability to work remotely as a reward. Few companies employ large numbers of full-time remote workers, with the biggest exception being the telemarketing industry. 75 percent of employers admit that these privileges have a positive effect on employee engagement, morale, retention and motivation.
A Virtual Office is really just an extension of the Remote Working model. The ability to work from a laptop anywhere, but still have all your calls answered by a professional secretary, and have all your mail picked up and forwarded makes remote working easy and inexpensive.
How Does The Mobile Professional Or Virtual Office User Leverage The ‘Cloud’?
Has anyone ever tried to explain cloud computing to you? Were you left feeling a little, well… cloudy?
The best example of cloud computing I can think of is an email service like Gmail or Hotmail. There’s nothing to download. All you need is an internet connection and you can start sending emails. The server and software is all on the cloud (internet) and is totally managed by the cloud service provider. All you have to do is use the software and enjoy receiving and sending off those emails.
‘Why buy a cow when you can have the milk for way way less?’
Just to send an email (the milk) why should you have to buy a software /hardware (the cow) ?
The Cloud can make your business more efficient than ever!
A cloud is actually just someone else’s server. Imagine a document on your computer. It’s local, you can access it. The cloud would be someone else’s computer, with a link so you can access it through the internet.
Like Gizmodo says: ‘Cloud” is a buzzword that vaguely suggests the promise and convenience of being able to access files from anywhere. But the reality is that the cloud is hardly floating like mist above our heads — it’s a physical infrastructure, its many computers housed in massive warehouses all over the world.’
But that’s just for data storage. What about other applications?
Well, that’s where the term “SAAS” comes from: Software as a Service. There are some examples of this as well: Buffer and Hootsuite for social media, Mailchimp and Constant Contacts to send massive amounts of emails at once, or even things like Google Analytics and Adwords to create and run campaigns online. These are all run by, and based on, “the Cloud”.
Software like this tends to cost less, a small monthly fee or pay-per-service model. As well as being constantly updated with new features and capabilities, and have more uptime. As compared to maintaining your own software, and your own servers, and be prone to power outages as well as higher costs.
And just like a good SaaS or a good Cloud storage provider can help you save money and focus on your business, so can we here at Virtual Business Offices. Get a Bay Street Address – Internationally recognized as the Business Center of Toronto – mail collection and forwarding, phone answering services and more!