Virtual Office - Get rid of the desk

In the current economic climate, many businesses are becoming increasingly mobile. Gone are the days of meeting at the office or heading back to the office in order to get anything done. Many businesses in fact don’t have a physical office but can manage with a virtual office. The only requirement for a virtual office is to be in contact at all times and to be able to access data at any given time. Below are a number of items that are essential for a virtual office.

1. Get a first-class smart phone with a good unlimited data plan. Ensure you take the time to learn how to use it and put the tools available to you to your best advantage. Don’t forget that this will hold a lot of your business contact details, so keep it charged and invest in an in-car charger and Bluetooth headset.

2. Invest in a new laptop. Ensure it has your required need in terms of memory and software etc. Get the super-gigantic hard drive. Spend the extra money for a hefty RAM upgrade. This will save you the hassle of an upgrade in 12 months. Try to back up everything on your laptop to a server at home or external hard drive just in-case your laptop breaks or gets stolen.

3. Wifi of USB internet dongle. Ensure you buy the best connectivity service for your area. It’s no good buying cheap if your connection drops every two minutes. Being in touch with your virtual office is essential for receiving any messages and incoming correspondence.

4. A good quality multi function printer. This will give your documentation a high quality, professional feel. Most multi-function printers can also be used as a photocopier and fax machine and ink cartridges appear to be getting cheaper.

Whilst the initial outlay for equipment may appear expensive having a virtual office can increase your reputation and give you reinforced professionalism. In the long term, reduced costs of having no rent on an office space to pay, makes having a virtual office a cheaper option with increased credibility.

12 recession busting tips (part 2)

7. Wifi. If you have an office, rather than having structured cabling, think about implementing Wifi. When Wifi was first introduced as a solution at the start of the decade it was unsecured and ropey to say the least. However, new Wifi can broadcast strong signals of a good range securely thus negating the need for costly structured cabling. This also gives you the option to move your staff around freely and increase your network base without having to install another network point.

8. Empower your employees. We all know in times of recession that stress levels in work are dramatically increased, as targets become harder and harder to attain. However, if you’re constantly brow beating your staff and telling them they are under performing then they will under perform and will soon become demoralised eventually sinking into the vicious circle so many companies are now facing. However, empowering the staff you have and making them feel valued doesn’t cost anything and will, even in the face of adversity, generate better productivity and raise the moral of the staff. “Happy staff are productive staff”

9. Cleaning. It’s easy to consider your cleaning costs as minimal i.e. £300 per month. But when you’re looking to cost cut then this should be in your arsenal. Empowering staff to empty their own bins, clean their own cups and simply take turns on hovering the office can easily reduce this luxury cost from £300 per month to a mere £10 per month.

10. Marketing & Virtualisation. Online marketing and media is far cheaper than using the traditional magazine and press method. More and more people are using the internet and when they search for a particular product or information most people type it into Google. Spending money with an online PR company and SEO company could save you thousands of pounds over a year in advertising and paper marketing.

11. Postage. Keeping people informed of your products and news releases isn’t easy. Most companies do this through postage; however, complimenting your virtual office and virtual solutions, this could be done using emails electronically. A bulk e mailer will cost you approx $30 per month and not only will you save on postage but also paper, printing and probably design costs. Since your using emails, why not email your invoices along with a read receipt to make sure your client has received it.

12. IT. This is one I would always recommend as the computer equipment you use can slow down your productivity, frustrate your staff and most of all keep the customer waiting thus increasing your phone bill. Keeping up to date with the latest computer equipment is not essential because new technologies come out every day, however, keeping them virus free, memory abundant and ensuring that they work smoothly with the software you need will go towards guaranteeing high delivery standards and reducing indirect costs.

12 Recession busting tips (part 1)

1. Hot Desking. This is a great concept and some of the serviced office companies provide it. This can also be beneficial to some of the corporate companies that have staff working on the road and need a desk. The basic concept is that you pay for the time your at the desk. Anyone can use the desk and it has a data connection point, sockets for your laptop and a phone line to plug into and the facility to print documents. The easiest way to explain it is as a “pay as you go desk”.

2. Working from home. More and more companies are allowing their staff to work from home. This reduces the costs of working in offices and allows staff to work from the comfort of their own home. Staff log onto the computer system as they would at the office and would have access to all of the systems remotely. Interestingly enough companies are reporting better performance from staff that work from home against those in the office environment.

3. Reducing carbon footprint. By running virtual offices and having staff working from home you can soon see that not only the reduction of direct costs such as utilities, office lease, cleaning etc but there also the environmental issues such as the reduction of co2 by staff not having to travel to work, less electricity used, less heating etc.

4. Virtualisation. The influence of greater technologies, hi-speed broadband and a recession that keeps people at home has opened new opportunities with companies opting for “pay as you go” micro services such as “virtual assistants”. These are secretaries and P.A.s which offer their services on a per hour basis thus negating the annual cost of having people in an office all of the time and probably under employed.

5. Virtualisation part 2. Again the Internet and hi-speed broadband means that you could reduce costs further by utilising video conferencing for meetings rather than having to get everyone in the same room. You can now get people to simply log on to the conferencing software with their web cam and you have a virtual meeting. Some companies have gone to the extreme with this and use online reality programmes such as 2nd life.

6. Virtualisation Part 3. With a virtual office you can just use it as a mailing address or you can use it in conjunction with a telephone answering service. This is a call centre who represent hundreds of companies but will answer your number as a company representative and put the call through to the right person. This gives the impression to the caller that you have either a professional front desk or a professional switchboard. Again this is better than hiring staff for this task as they would generally be under employed and cost far more than the “Pay as you go” service.

Part two will reveal how you can save even more money and get more from the staff you employ.