Virtual offices are excellent alternatives to traditional office space, where people will try to save on the costs and overheads of running an office while still maintaining the professionalism and decorum of a brick and mortar office.
Virtual offices are often mistakenly called “business centers”. These are two completely different concepts; however, as business centers require owners to pay rent, whereas virtual offices are rent free.
It is a combination of working from home and working from the office. Virtual offices have grown in demand parallel to the explosion of the virtual world, with online media racing ahead of conventional media in terms of information, entertainment, and product sales. However, the services offered by a virtual office go much further back, their roots being traced to the 1850s, when working out of the house first because popular.
What kind of people use virtual offices? The kind of people who want to maintain a professional appearance whilst keeping the costs down to a minimum. These include entrepreneurial start-ups, travelling sales men, and people with a craft/practice (doctors, lawyers, dentists, etc).
The service offered by such offices are quite extensive, and supply everything required by a traditional office to run a professional enterprise. Office needs can be broken down into two large categories: Space, and Communication. Whether it’s about communication or space, virtual offices offer phone answering and secretarial services as well as mailing and meeting space.
Space encompasses everything from a receptionist area to floor space, desk space, office space, meeting/conference rooms, etc. Communication involves receptionists, answering services, and dispatches. All these services can be supplied for the fraction of the cost of building this infrastructure and hiring all these employees in-house on a contractual basis.
Virtual offices shine most in a recession economy, which is the another reason for their growing popularity. The worldwide slump has seen a global surge in the demand for such services. By paying for space and communication on an as-needed basis (as opposed to every day of the year), start ups and practices keep office overheads down to a minimum, while still maintaining the appearance of a fully staffed professional outfit. So with professional team you can manage your calls and handle your mail and get a choice of prestigious addresses for your business worldwide. This results in small start ups being able to stay competitive in a saturated market, and improves the overall economy.