The Virtual Office has reversed trends brought on by the Industrial Revolution
...vider has to offer. A company looking for a way to handle incoming calls may choose to use just a telephone answering service as a cheaper alternative to hiring a receptionist. You may be asking yoruself, why do people use these virtual offices? The answers are very simple, virtual office are flexible - a wide range of services are available, from which you can pick and choose to suite your personal needs; cost effective - Virtual offices can be far cheaper than renting traditional office space or hiring additional secretarial staff. We are committed to finding you the most competitive rates, at no charge to you; and global - virtual offices are available in a wide range of highly prestigious locations around the world. This means that your virtual office can be as close as your home city, or as far a field as an entirely different country. Advantages Virtual offices have many advantages and a lot of times the benefit is two-sided. Environmental benefits from not driving a motor vehicle in slow-moving traffic and polluting the air, reduction in traffic congestion, reduction in stress levels from not having to drive in congested traffic to and from work, time saved not commuting to an office, monetary benefits from savings in gas, wear and tear on your car, business clothing, and lunches out, benefits from being able to manage your time more effectively, productivity benefits from being able to work when you are most productive, health benefits of being able to eat a better diet that includes less fast food, opportunities to get physical exercise when needed mentally, reduced stress benefits, benefit of living a more balanced life, a more relaxing work environment. Offering all the benefits of a serviced office, just without the space, a virtual office is simply a business address with a range of support services. The benefits of a virtual office are many. For instance, many overhead costs, such as electricity, are cut out or kept to a minimum for the company with virtual empployees. Telecommuting also eliminates crowded offices. As an added benefit, the virtual employee may agree to lower pay in exchange for the ability to work out of his home. Working in a virtual office cuts out a frustrating commute. A virtual office worker can work in pajamas or sweats if he's so inclined, eliminating the cost of a pricey business wardrobe. Expenses such as office supplies can either be billed back to the home office or written off on his taxes. Telecommuting may even eliminate the expense of day care or a full time baby sitter. The virtual employee is able to work without the distractions of a busy office. He won't be interrupted by a coworker's phone calls, office gossip, or a last minute meeting. Another reason many companies have begun using the virtual office is to reduce wear and tear on the environment from automobiles. The Clean Air Act in California has prompted businesses to change their work styles so that people don't have to drive to and from work. "Plus, it reduces the stress on employees of commuting on a daily basis, (Cantore, 1998) · Environmental benefits from not driving a motor vehicle in slow-moving traffic and polluting the air · Reduction in traffic congestion · Reduction in stress levels from not having to drive in congested traffic to and from work · Time saved not commuting to an office · Monetary benefits from savings in gas, wear and tear on your car, business clothing, and lunches out · Benefits from being able to manage your time more effectively · Productivity benefits from being able to work when you are most productive · Health benefits of being able to eat a better diet that includes less fast food · Opportunities to get physical exercise when needed mentally · Reduced stress benefits · Benefit of living a more balanced life · A more relaxing work environment · More opportunities to hire part-time or contract workers · A larger pool of employee applicants because location isn't as important With the right features, a virtual office can handle minor office tasks so you can concentrate on the critical functions of your business. Instead of organizing, cleaning and maintaining a literal office each day, you can spend time promoting and growing your business through networking and advertising. Your clients benefit because you are able to spend more time meeting their needs. Virtual offices eliminate the tasks of maintaining an entire office, but enable you to use the equipment and space provided. Eliminating Budget Concerns When you are working with a limited budget, heavy spending for office rent can deplete marketing money quickly. Spending thousands of dollars per year for your office space handicaps marketing abilities. A virtual office can provide key services such as phone, fax, mailing addresses and part-time office space for a couple of hundred dollars per month or less, saving you money for meeting other business priorities. Your Business on the Go If you normally work from your home or your car, having an office presence without paying high rent will prove beneficial. Some virtual office services provide conference rooms you can rent for a certain number of hours per month. This gives you a professional location to meet with clients or business partners on an as needed basis. If you are uneasy about meeting at your home or in public places, a conference room is a wise alternative. Being professional is a crucial factor in growing your business. Securing Important Contacts Providing a dependable way for clients to contact you is important. Imagine how you would feel if you were about to spend a large sum of money with a professional and their child answered the phone. Would you still feel comfortable? Probably not. You always want to exude professionalism and a child answering a business phone just doesn’t work. Using a virtual office to receive your phone calls, faxes and mail eliminates these risks. You can have clients contact you anytime without using your home phone or address. Most virtual office services allow you to forward your voice messages to any phone so you can get messages as they arrive. With online technology, you can even access voice mail over the Web with some services. Disaster recovery is yet another reason some organizations have chosen to use the virtual office setup. When all employees are housed in the same vicinity, there is a greater risk of losing people or work if something happens to the site. Haywood notes that Oracle Corp. has its main sites in California and Colorado. Spreading out their expertise is wise because California is prone to earthquakes, and Colorado often suffers from snowstorms. If either location were to be struck by a disaster, the company would be able to continue operations in the other site. Although it seems a simple solution to send back and forth written documents via e-mail, for example, such a setup is not without its problems. Many supervisors, for example, have difficulty adjusting to the concept of supervising people who are not in the next cubicle. Haywood notes that bosses need to learn different monitoring, mentoring and training methods to remain effective leaders in a virtual office. (Cantore, 1998) Disadvantages Although there are many advantages, there are also some disadvantages as well. Working by one's self is lonely and many virtual employees miss the camaraderie of an office. There are also many distractions at home, such as the refrigerator, the telephone, the Internet, the kids, and neighborhood affairs. It takes a disciplined person to be able to work in a virtual atmosphere. When working remotely you may feel a disconnection while working outside the office. The first is being physically disconnected from your team, your boss, and your customers. The second is the disconnection from the community. By being away all the time you can no longer just walk over and ask someone a question. You may lose the community aspect of working in a team. A lot of people use e-mail to communicate their ideas, but she believes that you lose a lot with single threads bouncing back and forward. Many workers thrive in an environment with less person-to-person contact, but the flipside of this independence is workers must be self-motivated to stay on task. In addition, the camaraderie people feel when they work side by side often is missing from virtual work relationships. "One advantage of a virtual office is being in a work environment where your supervisor is not constantly looking over your shoulder," Guinn explains. "Yet you may feel disconnected from the office and feel alone. When you primarily communicate with people via technology, you do not develop the 'water cooler' relationships you have with coworkers in an actual office." Setting ground rules for communicating and work schedules is crucial to running a successful virtual office. When you're used to walking down the hall to hand a colleague a document to review, it's quite a shock to realize suddenly the person who reviews your work is halfway across the country. Different time zones and work schedules can be a source of frustration for employees who are used to having instant response. To combat this problem, it's wise for team members to decide what time of day and how often they will review their incoming e-mail and how quickly they will respond to requests. (Cantore, 1998) Disadvantages · Lack of face-to-face communication increases chances of miscommunications or misunderstandings · Technical difficulties hindering communications or work progress · Feelings of separation or disassociation among employees · Less camaraderie among workers meaning possibilities for less cohesive work teams · Problems separating your free time from your work time because your work is always "there" · Less convenient to run errands at lunch time · Feelings of isolation if you are always home alone · Lack of support - both administrative and managerial Technology The role of technology is driving change to integrated applications that are able to be accessed through the Internet and available at all hours of the day, regardless of what time zone you are in, 24/7. These applications include, but are not limited to email, calendar and address book that can be synchronized with your PDA and cellular phone. You can receive an agenda by SMS/Text Message each day and send SMS/Text Messages right out of your virtual office. You can access your virtual office from any computer, your blackberry or Pocket PC. New technological advances have allowed us to use teleconferencing and video conferencing, you can have many people online sharing a presentation and making comments as the e-meeting goes on, simply by hosting it on a Web site. Video conferencing from the desktop allows remote workers to communicate and collaborate with colleagues, customers, partners, and prospective customers online instead of face-to-face. During a Web conference people share documents, work together and give presentations with the simple use of a web camera. The conferencing device, for instance by WebEx, means you don't have to invest in hardware or software to use it -- all you need is a phone and Internet connection. You can pay per use or subscribe monthly or yearly. And only the host has to be a subscriber, anybody else can attend a meeting once invited. The latest in end-to-end security systems recognize users, and depending on what program you are using, be it a laptop, mobile, or PDA, repackages the application for the screen being used and optimizes the connection. You have a single sign-on that understands who you are and saves you having to log into different applications separately. Web meetings save time and travel costs, and make it much easier for employees to be part of the team when they work remotely. You can see them, talk with them, share information, work together on presentations and proposals and they can shout at you and you can shout back, and all in real time, live, and on the Web. This also allows you to do sales demos, make customer presentations, train the team in the latest service, provide online technical support, run marketing seminars, and collaborate with colleagues, all on the Web. You are no longer deskbound, you have the ability ot access your computer when traveling, modern communication tools help to ensure that you are kept up to date with everything you need. A unified communications program can provide tools that interact together so users can tailor, control, and manage phone calls, messages, personal information and directories in ways that weren't possible just a few years ago. "Unified communications is becoming a hot topic for customers at the moment. As enterprises are leveraging recent investments made in their IP networks they're now looking for applications that will give them substantial productivity gains," says Vaughan Webster, national channel manager for Alcatel Australia's Enterprise Solutions. "Our OmniTouch system sets up communications access policies and permissions, aggregating and compiling messages into a single view and providing multi-device access to information. "For example, if an employee is stuck in traffic they can manage their e-mails and voice-mails from their mobile phone by using text to speech translation and speech recognition. "The interface can be a Web browser, mobile phone, wireless PDA, Outlook, Lotus Notes, Outlook Web Access, iNotes, or any kind of phone for voice access." And thanks to Vodafone slashing the cost of it's unlimited monthly data usage fee, many companies can easily afford to allow more staff to work at home or while travelling. To use the system, all you need is the Vodaphone Mobile Connect data-card which plugs into your laptop and you have unlimited Web access covering 92 percent of the country's population. The bundle allows customers to download as much data as they can use, within the company's fair use policy. "We are committed to providing businesses, large and small, with affordable access to the Net, so they have the freedom to get online where it suits them, and not where their landline connection is located," says Declan O'Callaghan, business marketing manager for Vodafone. Yet another aspect of technology which is making the life of staff working away much easier is e-learning. Students can access the lessons on the Web and dip in and out when they have the chance. "As a remote user and someone who spends a lot of time on the road I don't get the chance to attend courses but now I can do it all online. I can log in anytime to do a learning course," says IBM's Batainah. "At IBM, we use it all the time. I can continue learning any time I want by simply logging in. Remote working is all about utilising your time better, and thanks to modern technology it's become more of a reality." "I've been a sales manager for four years, and the changes in technology have made my life easier and easier. There has never been a better time to become a remote worker." Newly developed software such as Netscape Virtual Office®, Virtual File Cabinet®, or Netopia Virtual Office® allows thousands of employees to share electronic files. Chip technology is decentralizing production, shifting work from a central place either back to the household or to no place in particular. More generally, the Internet has reduce the transactions costs, whether it’s a market report authored jointly by researched from around the work or a new computer system assembled fro partes ordered over the internet. (McEachern, 2006) Essay BibliograpTechnology such as e-mail makes it simple for a worker in California to compose a proposal and then shoot it off to someone as far away as Asia to get feedback. Companies such as Lockheed Martin have found virtual offices to be a boon to their operations. Although Lockheed still provides physical office space for its employees, the virtual office enhances their productivity. On the other hand, the California?based company Veriphone, which makes telephone headsets, is a completely virtual office setup. (Cantore, 1998) The Internet. Virtual Office could not exist without the Internet. It uses the Internet to create a "network" in which any user can sign in. Once in the network, Virtual Office knows whether the user works solo or is part of one or more groups. Because of our security features, the network can be used for sensitive information. Software Applications. Virtual ...