Virtual offices: Gaining your business goals

Today, it is possible to start your business even from home starting with an internet connection, in the past you would need to consider finding an office or a shop to rent or to buy before you could consider going into business. Having a physical presence is key and you would usually have to pay up front for that. While working from home or a remote location has many advantages with the cost savings being the easiest recognizable, there are also other factors that you need to know about before setting up your own virtual office.

With the growth of the internet, a wealth of information is available about products and services. Also, visitors to your site will want to find out where you are based, having an address in an out of the way location is not a good idea as it suggests that you are probably working from a home office. Taking advantage of a virtual office service provider means that you can get potentially prodigious address at a fraction of the cost of having your own premises. In addition, you can rent a telephone receptionist service, this means that people trying to reach you can call a fixed line number that will be answered in the name of your company during business hours and you can take advantage of having a fax number too, should that be useful to you. Callers will prefer talking to someone when you are not available as even if you are a single trader, it will appear that your company has more substance than it really has. Furthermore with this service, you can be informed in a way that works for you because messages can be delivered to wherever you are, regardless if you are in the airport, in the car or on the train.

If you are considering setting up your activities in a country or on a continent that you are not familiar with, multinational virtual office service providers can be really helpful, if for example you are setting up in China, you may not yet be an expert in Mandarin so to be able to talk to an account manager in your own language about your needs and requirements is extremely helpful. If you need to add additional services or check that the ones being offered are up to the grade, having a local contact in your home country and easily accessible is really important. Assuming your first dip into doing business in this new market is going well and you may need to consider expansion using a virtual office service provider, you will also have total flexibility. There will come a time when it makes sense to plunge into the market and take on all the responsibility yourself and there will be good savings to be made at that time. This is because your market knowledge will have grown, but at all times the virtual office service provider delivers real benefits and economies of scale in particular during the most vulnerable period – the start up phase or “take off ramp” if you prefer.

It’s good to take note of a saying from the military sector, “It is easy to engage with the enemy” or in commercial terms, start doing business with your clients. It is far more difficult and costly to disengage in terms of the traditional business model with a physical office space compared to the case of virtual office facilities.