The new solution to Virtual Office

For business people globally, whether they are currently in business or just starting out, the economic turmoil is making it increasingly difficult to justify spending, which is why people are looking at virtual office solutions.

Traditionally, when starting a new business, the decision is whether to convert a room in the house into an office or where to locate the business premises


Both options present downsides. Convenient and cost-effective as it maybe, the home office is likely to have many distractions such as kids and pets and are not the best place to host important client meetings.

Renting office space can be expensive and when starting out can be risky. Finding the right office space, with the right facilities in the right location at the right price can take up a lot of your valuable resources and in most cases will tie you in for 3-4 years which at this early stage in any business can be a bad idea.

For years, many small businesses wrestled with these challenges. Most businesses are not aware of the options available and are surprised when they are introduced to Virtual Office services.

The Best of Both Worlds

A virtual office - This is possibly one of the most powerful tools in your arsenal for small businesses that want to limit their start-up costs and establish themselves alongside larger competitors. For a small fee and a fraction of what it would cost to set up a fully serviced office, small businesses can now use virtual offices to produce a professional image alongside the larger businesses, offering the professional outlook needed to compete in today’s markets.

A virtual office is a real address, real services but operated virtually. While you continue to work at home or on the road, a receptionist at the "virtual" location handles incoming calls answering them in the business' name, and receives and forwards royal mail and faxes.

A great advantage of having a virtual office is that it gives you a prestigious business address and local phone number, which gives the right impression to potential clients. For example, i2office, the new market leader in workplace solutions, boasts new innovation through technology and design, their rapid expansion is just an example of how they understand the needs of businesses in the UK.

One such innovation is a Virtual office can be used to test new markets, ensuring the cost base, risk and exposure is minimal. However, if the venture is successful, the business has gained an immediate presence in a viable market.

One advantage of a virtual office solutions is that you can have your Virtual Office, Telephone number etc within 5 minutes of setting up online. You don’t have to talk to anyone, everything can be done instantly online without any fuss.

Written By: William Jones (Office Entrepreneurs UK)

Virtual Office in the Face of Economic Uncertainty

Globally Virtual office services are unprecedentedly flourishing. Clients who need to keep up appearances have been flocking to these Virtual Office service providers even though the virtual rents keep going up.

The traditional office leasing market in Manchester and London, after absorbing rent decreases of 25-30 percent over 2008, remain in the doldrums. However, the market in ‘virtual offices’ is booming.

A ‘virtual office’ is an office with an area of zero square metres. A customer who leases a virtual office gets a high profile city address he can use to register his business and send and receive mail, a fixed telephone line and a fax machine that operates 24/7. Operators answer incoming calls as though they are staff of the client and then forward messages to client’s true location. If the clients need an impressive place to meet business partners or customers, they can use meeting rooms equipped with modern facilities.

It’s an innovative – and somewhat 22nd Century - solution to the problem of not having an impressive city center office of your own. Clients can opt for an additional range of services, including the use of meeting rooms, photocopiers, printing machines and Internet. They can rely on the virtual office providers to deliver tasteful decorations, stylish receptionists, I.T. set-ups and even staff to organise a reception service.

That explains why office buildings have been appearing in various town and cities across the UK with nameplates of several companies.

Clients save both money and face

The economic difficulties of others have proven to be a golden opportunity for virtual office service providers. For many, business turnover has tripled in comparison with pre-crisis period.

One of the biggest virtual office leaders in the UK, said that he had 50% more clients early this year than he did twelve months’ earlier.

Most of clients say they use virtual office services to save money. A director of a real estate company in Liverpool said that normal office fee is too high for businesses facing economic difficulties. Therefore, he decided to lease a virtual office. “We only need to pay a small amount to see our nameplate hanging over the most modern and fully equipped buildings,” he added happily.

Laura Jones, a manager at a travel firm that leases a virtual office in Exeter, confessed that her firm’s real office is located in a terrace house. "It’s not a suitable place when the staff need to invite clients to discuss business which is why we use a virtual office with additional services". “Our business has become better since we began using the service,” she said.

Written by: Dave Williamson (ipl international)

Virtual Office for Real Businesses

Jonathan Richards decided to start his own overseas property business working from home after being made redundant in the latter part of 2007. He turned his garage into an office setting up his computers and printers and using his home phone number as his business line. Whilst working from home has its advantages using a residential address for business purposes does not really portray a successful business, and when meeting clients its not very practical to take them into your garage at home.

Like all new businesses Jonathan was in a dilemma. The contacts were coming in fast, his client base was growing and having meetings in local hotels became a bind. He knew he had to somehow portray a more business like image. When a colleague admitted that he used a virtual office Jonathan decided to investigate if this would be of use to him.

There are several companies offering this service and Jonathan was impressed to find that he could have a virtual office in any part of the country without him having to be there. He realised that having a proper business address would transform the perception of his business, making his company appear much larger than it really was enabling him to contact larger potential customers.

He signed up with a virtual office company and found that he was able to use their meeting rooms if necessary and also they provided a telephone answering service and lots of extra business support. Now all his stationary, website and email correspondence has the look and feel of a larger professional company.

Written By: Amit Patel

Top 5 UK Virtual Office Locations

Virtual offices offer many solutions for companies all shapes and sizes, whether it’s a full virtual office solution or just an address, there are many reasons why people choose to use one of the newest services available to the business community.

We recently conducted a survey into which are the most popular locations for people to have a virtual office in the UK. 16 out of a 100 people surveyed said they had more than one virtual office and 23 people said that they used it for a prestigious mailing address. It wasn’t any surprise that 62 people said they used it as a cost saving strategy.

Top 5 Locations

London
This was hardly surprising, not only because it the UK’s number one city for business but because of the office rental prices within the city centre. “It gives the right impression to our clients…….. but at a cost that we can afford” was one of the comments.

Manchester
This was also hardly surprising as it the Hub of the north. Manchester Airport offers a global reach from the north of the UK and businesses find that Manchester is a great central hub to the rest of the UK, but again with popularity the prices of offices are rising.

Birmingham
Right in the heart of England and with great transport links, makes Birmingham one of the top contenders for business. Because of its location Birmingham offers a “middle ground” from Manchester and London, which is why some companies are choosing it as a virtual office solution.

Dublin
Virtual office solutions in Dublin are becoming more popular, especially with business registering their head office in Dublin. It not only gives the look and feel of a larger company expanding but opens the doors to the Irish market. Virtual office solutions will also make sure that you have a local telephone number, which can be directed to your mobile.

Edinburgh
As the Business hub of Scotland this was the expected choice for Scotland. As with most of the cities in the UK office prices are rising and the recession is causing businesses to re-think their strategy. Some of the more exclusive offices in Edinburgh are offering Virtual office solutions.

Written By: Shaun Jefferies (Officebug)

21st Century Law

There’s a change in the way law firms are starting to operate in the UK. It’s more profitable, more economical and also gives clients greater access to solicitors.

One law firm started out with just eight partners in May 2008. The company now has over forty-four partners throughout the country and is still growing.

This firm doesn’t have too worry about finding office space big enough to accommodate their growth. The partners are spread out across the country and most work from home. It sounds to good to be true, especially as the firm has a presence in most counties, with prestigious addresses almost everywhere. How?

This is probably one of the finest examples of how one of the countries fastest growing law firms is setting one of the industries newest trends - Virtual Offices - companies that don’t need office space to operate but still want the prestigious address and the support when its needed. Using only a laptop computer, mobile phone, wireless Internet and computer networking, they can remain connected to each other and their clients without ever stepping foot outside of their front door.

Across the Atlantic the 2009 Legal Technology Survey Report by the American Bar Association reported about 6 percent of more than 880 attorneys surveyed said they use a virtual office (that’s a 4% growth in one year), while about 77% said they use email and remote office technology in some way (a rise of 13.7% in the year).

One UK Law firm said “We chose this model as its' cost effective and works nationwide enabling us to grow, but we are in the early stages,” Wilson said. “The main advantage has been that we can offer solicitors in most towns throughout the UK with prestigious office addresses next to the bigger law firms.”

Wilson is looking to expand globally and because his model in the UK is so successful, he is looking to start his expansion in to Europe. The Virtual office solution for Law firms was first seen in the USA, where groups of lawyers across states linked up to form a network of law firms which could assist anyone in any state and only had to remember one company name.

“This is not just a cost-savings model,” Wilson said. “Yes, it saves a tremendous amount on overhead, but it also allows our staff members flexibility in the hours that they work.”

Wilson said he started the firm in 2008 because his law partner at his former firm was not as willing to hop on the green and virtual bandwagon at the same rate as him. He said the firm saves on warehouse storage costs by scanning all documents to CD and then shredding the paper to recycle.

One of the advantages of the Virtual Office solution is that they hold meetings with clients at either the clients offices or they simply book a meeting room for the duration of the meetings required thus enabling them to answers phone anywhere, anytime

Written By: Andrew Havey (Glasgow Business News)