What exactly is a virtual office? A virtual office / office space is a suite of offices segregated to smaller sections of workstations and workspaces to be leased out individually to business owners. As high levels of prestige often accompany addresses of virtual offices, they are usually located in high profile buildings within central business districts in major cities around the world. Apart from that, buildings located within certain locations may be associated with prestige for certain industries. This is why identifying the right virtual office within the right building is essential in building the image required for your company.

Virtual offices are not limited to just office space and a nice address. In fact, many virtual office companies understand that many business owners or self-employed individuals are only utilizing their services to obtain the corporate address for their businesses. With the internet in place, we are no longer bound by physical locations, and therefore many business owners are working from home. This way, they only utilize their virtual offices for business meetings and the occasional business services required.

This is why virtual offices also offer a full range of office services specifically catered for their customers. These would include phone answering or receptionist services for incoming phone calls received on behalf of the companies. In these cases, receptionists will either take a message or forward the calls to the primary number of the contact person or business owner. This entire process is transparent to the caller, an attribute which helps to create the required corporate image for the company.

Another important feature is the high speed internet network infrastructure setup that is available within many renowned virtual offices across the world. In fact, this is a service that has pretty much become a default within most virtual office setups, as high speed internet links are required for home office workers who may need to connect to office servers located in the virtual office. This is essential as multiple workers may want to consolidate, interact, upload or share files through office servers, and thus broadband connections to the servers are necessary for better quality in usage experience.

Apart from that, recent VoIP technology which operates on top of internet network infrastructure has enabled phone calls to be transmitted through the internet. This means that the cost of phone calls made by office users within virtual offices can be reduced. Additionally, certain virtual offices may utilize VoIP technology for their phone lines or provide call forwarding services for phone calls to be directed to primary numbers.

Other value added services supported by many virtual offices are video conferencing facilities, in which employees within a virtual office are able to hold virtual conferences with other employees located in various locations. Essentially, group decisions and discussions can be made within an organization, without requiring people to be physically present in the same location. Also, other than satellite transmissions, high speed internet connections is commonly used as the voice, data and video transfer medium in order for such facilities to be made possible.

With the recent awareness in the occurrences of disasters in urban centers following the September 11 attack, many organizations are setting up disaster recovery centers in order to ensure business continuity during a crisis. With this, many disaster recovery centers have mushroomed, each of them providing a full range of services ranging from disaster recovery planning, risk analysis and training.

Other than just providing server room facilities for the inclusion of mirrored servers in the recovery centers, disaster recovery centers also include adequate workspace for office employees (office space) so that work can resume almost immediately after the occurrence of a disaster.

Essentially, a subscription to a disaster recovery center is like subscribing to insurance. You will never know when the next crises will occur, and therefore most companies need to be ever ready to resume business even if their office premise is no longer functional. Apart from just a physical recovery, employees too need to be prepared in case of such an emergency, which is why many disaster recovery centers provide employee trainings too.

It is a norm that disaster recovery center services are expensive and is a contingency plan usually adopted by large corporations. Smaller and younger corporations may not have the budget for such services. However, virtual offices have identified this as a business opportunity and therefore double as disaster recovery sites for smaller business setups.

Through subscription to virtual office services, business would already have the required insurance that they need in case of emergencies. Many virtual offices are fully equipped with all business facilities for business operations, with some virtual offices also providing server hosting facilities. With the call answering services and office administration support, any incoming calls to your company will be promptly answered.

Apart from that, your data backups can be uploaded into the servers located in the virtual office so that your employees and even your customers can now access information from your servers. Other than that, ample office space provided will allow your employees to continue working as they were before, as long as they follow the disaster recovery code that has been developed.

The relatively low costs incurred for subscribing to virtual office services have made them very attractive to small business owners. This is a small price to pay for being prepared in the event of disasters, and can even help to prevent further losses to the company just by subscribing to virtual office facilities. As these facilities are obtained before any disaster occurs, you will already have everything prepared for you beforehand. Just imagine trying to obtain virtual office facilities after an event. Either you’d have to pay top dollar for the service, or bear with the losses of discontinued business activity.

The following are the list of tools that are most commonly found within virtual office software:

Calendar

Calendar applications have been developed specifically for time management purposes. With the use of a calendar, employees will be less likely to miss their appointments and will also be able to plan their time better for the future. Similarly, calendar functions in virtual office applications allow group members to view appointments made by fellow team members, and even sync their appointments into their PDA. This works especially well if a few team members are required to attend a common meeting.

Phone call management

The phone call management feature allows users to track down missed calls while they were out of the office so that they can return these calls when they access this function remotely, or when they visit the virtual office later

Document Review

This feature allows documents produced in a workspace to be reviewed by other members. Changes can be tracked so that alterations made can be traced back to the originator.

Picture Sharing

Pictures of Jpeg or Gif formats can be shared within a workspace. This gives other users the ability to view pictures of physical products that otherwise would have to be sent out via email, which may take up space, time and resources.

Web links

Web URLs can be shared amongst team members. This points other people within the group to useful resources or references from the internet which the can use for their individual sections of their projects.

Email utilization

Email usage is probably one of the most common and also the most important functionality within a virtual office application system. Although users may access their email directly from their mail servers, they have to option to receive email via the virtual office application interface. This provides them with a complete “dashboard” view of their workspace.

Group Creation

Workgroups can be created based on location of virtual office to enable file-sharing between employees located within a virtual office. This feature is important for work-in-progress files to be cross-checked by other employees, or to allow for sharing of reference material between virtual office workers.

Task Manager

This feature allows the project manager to delegate work to specific team members, track progress statuses as well as to follow-up with others on project updates.

Online meeting

Through the use of online meetings, employees from virtual offices all over the world can participate in virtual discussions over the internet. This way, they can brain storm ideas, share out their presentations and possibly have a teleconference at the same time. Apart from that, employee trainings can also be conducted remotely through this interface.

Instant messaging

Instant messaging provides an avenue for virtual office workers to communicate with others regardless of their location. They can check for updates, have one-to-one discussions or even send files through the internet.

Bulletin Board

Employers can utilize the bulletin board as a means to broadcast important announcements to all employees in every location. This way, everyone will be kept updated on the happenings of the company that they are working for.

Virtual Drive

A virtual drive allows users to back up important information to the server. This is important as company information and tasks will be lost if a team member’s computer crashes. Apart from that, other users can also extract files from the virtual drive for editing or usage purposes.

One of the greatest challenges in running a virtual office is the consolidation of the different files and tasks of virtual office workers. As most of these mobile or remote users may be operating mostly out of their computer notebooks, it may become a challenge to put everything together. Apart from that, meeting appointments, task delegation, sharing of information, email access from a central mail server, instant messaging and address book management, may constitute some of the standard functionalities available in most virtual office software. Many types of virtual software are classified as groupware and can be used on a subscription basis. This arrangement allows companies operating out of virtual offices to save on their operating costs as charges will be made in smaller amounts on a monthly basis, as opposed to one-time hefty software purchase costs.

Why is Virtual Office Software necessary?

Virtual office software has been developed to solve the issues faced by mobile workers. It is very common nowadays for an entire office of co-workers to be working from various locations, such as the airport, their homes, hotels and in virtual offices. With this, it is a huge challenge when it comes to the integration of files, applications as well as security and enterprise software installed within different laptop computers. Moreover, as the engagement of contracted workers is on the rise with most of them utilizing self-owned computer hardware and software for their work, synchronizing information between a few of these computers would be an IT administrator’s nightmare.

Most enterprise applications today have been built for a local area network setup in a traditional office environment, with a constant number of users within the network. This means that fixed IP addresses can be assigned to these users and therefore network management and control measures can be implemented.

However, virtual office users do not have this luxury as they may be located in multiple offices and moving around the entire time. Apart from that, with different applications installed on the computers of these users, installation of security updates, corporate application updates, Virtual Private Network access or usage logging all prove to be administrative tasks of great challenge. In the end, the only forms of collaborative applications that can be used are restricted to email, voice mail, internet phone calls and instant messaging. In an increasingly competitive environment, these facilities alone would not be adequate to meet work productivity and effectiveness demands. This is where the explicit benefits of virtual office applications come into the picture.

The virtual office application solution to this scenario is the creation of a workspace that offers a platform for anyone regardless whether they belong to the same organization, they are external vendors, they telecommute or of they are mobile business travelers, to connect to one another virtually and easily. The workspace is a virtual environment where all users can log on to and share their work amongst other members who also logged on. The beauty of this setup is the fact that rigorous setups typical of legacy systems are no longer required. A workspace can be set up by any group member, who will then invite other members of the workspace. All this can be done within minutes with a virtual office application.

Everything is organized within a workspace, as the objects within a workspace are centered on projects, people groups or processes. This is why only relevant people will be invited to join in a workspace. Ultimately, all elements related to the project – email, files, data, forms, messages or project management tools – are all available within one interface. Synchronization is the key to the success of a virtual office application, which is why everyone in the team will be able to view the latest progress on the project that they are working on.

Furthermore, as the virtual office application is store in the respective computers of the mobile workers, they are able to work on their portion of the project regardless whether they are online or offline. All they need to do is to get it synchronized later on when they go online again.

Another cool function of the virtual office application is its ability to extract email from external clients such as MS Outlook or Lotus Notes to be incorporated into the workspace. Essentially, any email updates with regards to the project, will be emulated within the workspace. Through this feature, virtual office users will no longer be swamped with unlinked email threads and delayed responsiveness.

Perhaps one of the most remarkable functions of a workspace is the ability for users to view what other team members are working on at the current moment. This is a feature that provides users with the ability to sense the availability of another team member before interrupting him or her either through the phone or via instant messenger.

One of the main functionalities of a virtual office is to allow local or mobile employees to telecommute to the office as and when is required. As great flexibility has been provided to employees, a set of office policies should also be developed to ensure that there is standardization of workflow within the organization, clear communication and understanding of employee responsibilities and at the same time allow you to have a set of guidelines for ease of management. This is in view of the fact that you as well as your employees will not be present at the office space most of the time, which is why the entire team should have a clear understanding of policies that have been drafted out. With this, disputes or misunderstandings will be less likely to happen, and the management would already have communicated their expectations to employees.

The following are some important areas in which policies should be developed:

- Work location – the base office location of the employees should be clearly stated. With this point, employees should be advised on where they can work and the frequency in which they need to report to the office space. They should also be provided with a set of information they can use, such as ID cards, in order to gain access to the virtual office.

- Work equipment – lists out the equipment that will be provided by the management, as well as the ownership of the equipment (notebooks, PDAs) that are provided. Clear policies should be stated on the responsibilities of the employees towards the work equipment and the value penalties incurred should the employees lose the equipment entrusted to them for their work.

- Software applications – A standard set of software applications should be used across the board and installed within all computers used by employees. These would include collaborative software as well as the compatibility of software used. Apart from that, clear communication should also be provided on the prohibition of unlicensed software applications in company owned equipment, failing which employees will be dismissed immediately.

- Server login procedures – As working at a virtual office involves employee logins from remote locations, a set of guidelines need to be drafted out on the login IDs used by employees, as well as the access or administrative rights of different users. This would help to ensure accountability in the event of mishaps to the company server or the company database.

- Time-sheet submission – With a system set-up for timely time-sheet submission, business owners will have a method for employees to report the time spent for their daily tasks and responsibilities. This will help employers ascertain the productivity of the employees, as well as to ensure that they are working on the projects or making the sales calls that they are supposed to. However, submission of time sheets is by no means a reflection of the actual results generated by each employee. This is why periodical reviews should be held to ensure that virtual office workers are on track in their work.

- Protocols for interactions with customers – In order to standardize communications procedures with clients within virtual offices, employers should develop a set of protocols to be adhered to when using email communications, greeting external clients in the virtual office as well as phone call courtesy guidelines. All of these protocols should match the corporate culture determined by the employer to ensure a consistent corporate image is projected to external parties.

- Working hours and email usage – Employees should be informed of the standard working hours within the virtual office, although they may sometimes work overtime, or even from their homes. Overtime rates, if practiced, should be communicated clearly in writing to virtual office employees. This is to avoid any incidence of disputes in employment hours and wages.

Upon signing up for subscription to a virtual office or an office space, a service contract will be provided for subscribers to agree on the levels of services provided. This would be a good time to clarify on the commitment levels agreed upon by the virtual office management. Once the list of services to be provided are all agreed by both parties, then subscription to the services of the virtual office can then commence.

As most office facilities are already in place within virtual offices, there should not be much preparation required by the subscriber. Basic items such as fax machines, printers, workstations and photocopiers should already be in place within virtual offices. Apart from that, some virtual offices offer administrator and concierge support services as part, parcel of their package and office space. However, personal work tools such as computer laptops or a desktop computer, or personalized applications may not be prepared by the virtual office. Only hi-speed internet connection networks are set up in most virtual offices for ease in user connection to the local area network and also the internet.

Additionally, certain virtual offices also include the leasing of data centre facilities in which subscribers can use to host their websites, applications and databases. The maintenance procedures of these servers should be outlined clearly, as well as the frequency and responsibility of data backups to be conducted on these servers. Apart from that, levels of technical support provided should also be clearly defined in a contract to ensure minimal disputes later on.

At times, some virtual office users should also require the use of virtual office software applications in order to synchronize work between the multiple users or employees in the organization. These would be items that incur expenditure on the part of the virtual office subscriber.

With the core objective of a virtual office layout in mind, business owners or corporations should have an idea of the type of virtual office that they should be looking for as well as a list of probable locations. Therefore, their next step would be to evaluate a few virtual offices within the location of their choice.

Although subscription prices may be one of the key factors affecting the choice of a virtual office, there are other factors for consideration such as the historical service level reviews for each particular virtual office. Some virtual offices may deliver services that are below the expectations of subscribers.

These would include standards of technical support provided, competency levels of receptionist and performance of internet access bandwidth provided. All of these areas need to verified and ascertained before a commitment can be made on the virtual office subscription. A voicemail system, unreliable internet access services or delayed mail forwarding will render the virtual office services useless, as these constitutes the core services provided by a virtual office provider.

One of the ways to check on the reliability of the virtual office or the office space, is to call up existing tenants within the office to obtain feedback on historical usage of the virtual office or the office space.

Determining your purpose for a virtual office or an office space

The first step that you should take in setting up a virtual office is to determine your home base and the best way to do this is to evaluate the size and location of your customer base. It would be logical for you to select a virtual office location that is easy for you to contact your customers or even to meet up with them if necessary. In fact, one of the most important facilities that should be made easily available to your customers should be phone communication. It should be easy for your customers to call your company in the event of any queries, or least get through to a phone assistant who will answer the calls for you.

Apart from that, if you are expanding your business to other parts of the country, or even internationally, your selection of a virtual office or office space will depend on your target expansion location. It would be best if you identify areas with the best potential for sales development, set up a virtual office within that location, and station your local sales force to operate out of your virtual office. In fact, you can even visit your virtual office in these locations occasionally in addition to having adequate operational facilities to keep you productive throughout your visit.

Other factors affecting your decision of a good location would be the competency level and language fluency of the employees in your target location. If most of your clients communicate in the local language, you should ideally seek for a virtual office that provides phone answering services in this language. Sometimes, you may want a virtual office that provides multi-lingual support as callers of various nationalities may be calling you at that location. The same goes for your sales force deployed in your target location. You need to ensure that your employees have attained a certain level of competency in order to be productive while working at your virtual office.

There are also various other reasons for setting up a virtual office. Some organizations set up virtual offices at many cities around the world in order to project a professional image. All they need is a prestigious address, phone answering and mail forwarding service. With this, they would most likely opt for a basic virtual office package that will only include the bare essentials and nothing more.

Most virtual office services are offered in various service packages, with each package designed for varying levels of facilities, prices and service levels. For instance, some packages may offer the full suite of virtual office services including concierge service, live phone call answering, airport pickup, daily mail forwarding, call forwarding services and office spaces. On the other hand, basic packages may only include weekly mail forwarding, voice mail services with no concierge or administrative support.

These variations have been developed to cater to the different requirements of virtual office users. Larger corporations may require a wider range services as they possess a greater number of employees and also greater sales volumes, all of which lead to a larger budget requirement for office facility spending. Conversely, smaller organizations may only consist of a few employees, or even just a self-employed business owner. Naturally, a smaller operation will mean lower cost requirements for office facilities.

Basic virtual office packages will just incorporate a prestigious business address, with mail notification services, voice mailbox services, phone answering usage of office facilities and technical support. Some virtual office providers may include or exclude certain types of services depending on they way their virtual office subscription packages have been designed. Most of the time, basic services will incur affordable monthly charges particularly suited for the self-employed virtual office services subscriber.

Apart from that, certain virtual office providers have gotten creative with their virtual office subscription packages till the point that they have included variety even in bare essentials in order to cater to more customized requirements. For instance, mailbox packages would be focused on business owners who may mail receipt and forwarding as the core functionality of their needs in addition to a prestigious business address. Other business owners may regard telephone call answering as the most important functionality in a virtual office, which is why a Telephone Answering package is offered.

Of course, another important aspect in the criteria of determining the prices of virtual office packages would be the location of the physical office building (office space). This is due to the difference in standards of living between countries, cities and even alternate areas within a city. A virtual office located in a prestigious area in a city would be more expensive as compared to one located in the suburbs. Similarly, a virtual office located in London would cost more than one located in Singapore, where a virtual office address with no frills can be obtained for as low as $4 per month. A similar service in the middle of New York City can cost as high as $275 per month.

Virtual office packages with more value added services will definitely be priced higher than packages just with basic services. Essentially, these packages are provide more than just a business address, but include facilities that cater to the convenience of work-from-home or mobile employees who may require the use of a virtual office whenever they are in town. Additionally, these virtual offices also provide them with a presentable and prestigious business meeting venue right in the middle of the city center.

Apart from that, high-end virtual office packages are aimed for total subscriber convenience. With this, a full range of value added services is provided including concierge services, administrative support, and access to any chain of virtual offices around the world, call forwarding services and personalized call answering. Of course, these services will cost significantly more than basic services ranging from $200 to $400 a month.

Moreover, subscribers are also provided with other optional services such as part time private office usage limited to a maximum period in a month, dedicated phone and fax lines, web page hosting packages, web conference facilities in addition to high speed broadband internet connection lines.

It is norm for all businesses to engage the services of professionals such as tax accountants, attorneys or business registration services. If you had been operating in the same country and the same location for a long time, you would probably be familiar with the procedures required to obtain the services of these professionals.

However, if you are new in town, and have just launched your business in a foreign country, obtaining such services may take up a lot of your time and effort. What’s more, you would probably need to get accustomed to the local working culture and also acquire knowledge in the local procedures before you can move on to the next level.

However, if you are a virtual office subscriber in the foreign country, you may obtain the help that you need from the virtual office. Many virtual offices & office spaces understand the plight of new business operations in their country and therefore provide a full range of professional services to their clients. With this, virtual office users will no longer need to hunt for suitable professionals and instead have the convenience of working out arrangements with those recommended by the virtual office. This is especially useful if the virtual office user is not located in the country, and therefore requires someone to work with remotely to complete the processes and procedures in setting up a foreign company within a limited timeframe.