This post describes how to have a virtual office possibly eliminating the need for a physical office based on the size and criticality of the business.
The main business functions that you server for the office for a start-up would be:
Establish presence – means to contact
Showcase competencies, services and products
Facilitate in engagement of services– a shop in the marketplace
Workspace for the employees of the organization
Finance/Compliance planning and handling
Let us look at how we can facilitate this in the IT world and the advantages.
By having an address that represents your idea/company, you are establishing you presence on the web. This can be achieved by buying a domain. There are several vendors that provide these services with Godaddy, eNom and Name.com as pioneers. Your domain name can cost you anywhere between 2$ and a million dollars based on what your chosen domain name is. It is important that you choose your business name which is catchy, easy to remember and close to your business/company. It is best to go with .com as most of us use this by default. If you want one for free, you might want to try co.cc for a start.
Remember that the page that comes first when you visit your domain is like your reception. The home page should be used to give a glimpse of your idea/organization and should showcase your competencies, services and products. You should be able to route your visitor to the section based on his interests from this page.
The most important link that should be present on the home page should be the contact us page. This is essential and is like the business card that is given to the visitor. This should include all possible means of communication with you that preferably includes a feedback box that the visitor can key in anything. This helps those visitors that do not have access to e-mail leave their communication immediately. This becomes all the more important if you are not equipped to sell your products from your website. Most websites today have live chat features to facilitate a virtual visiting experience. These solutions are available from about 50$ a month where in agents who can assist your visitor are deployed on a 24*7 basis.
If you believe that your services can be sold online, it is always beneficial to have a shopping cart facility added to your website. Ideally you should be able to collect payments and deliver goods online. Alternatively, you can collect the customer information and contact them to confirm the order and ship it for Cash On Delivery. You can make your website e-commerce ready so that you can collect and deliver goods online using credit cards or internet banking for a fee upwards of 50$.
Another important aspect that a physical office facilitates is the workspace and facilities for carrying out the job. This can be replaced by a computer with internet connection complete with a VOIP phone. All the documentation can be done using digital signatures and soft copies thereby helping you go green and save a lot of money that you would have to incur otherwise. For a start, if you are hiring employees in a work from home mode, this set-up can prove to be extremely beneficial. I recommend that you take advantage of Google Apps to provide solutions for most of the functions listed here. You get a document repository with free software that won’t compel you to buy software licenses and meet the legal regulations.
For the finance and compliance planning, today even conventional offices totally depend on ERP software. Application providers like salesforce.com have been successful in bringing almost all these software without any purchasing costs and hardware costs using cloud computing.
So as we see from the above, it is very much possible today to run your business from an office that is totally virtual! Doing this saves you a lot of costs. For legal issues, you can register your business having your home as address and cut down on the rentals/ any other expenditure you would have to incur.
Do share your thoughts..
-Pavan Pendyala
The main business functions that you server for the office for a start-up would be:
Let us look at how we can facilitate this in the IT world and the advantages.
By having an address that represents your idea/company, you are establishing you presence on the web. This can be achieved by buying a domain. There are several vendors that provide these services with Godaddy, eNom and Name.com as pioneers. Your domain name can cost you anywhere between 2$ and a million dollars based on what your chosen domain name is. It is important that you choose your business name which is catchy, easy to remember and close to your business/company. It is best to go with .com as most of us use this by default. If you want one for free, you might want to try co.cc for a start.
Remember that the page that comes first when you visit your domain is like your reception. The home page should be used to give a glimpse of your idea/organization and should showcase your competencies, services and products. You should be able to route your visitor to the section based on his interests from this page.
The most important link that should be present on the home page should be the contact us page. This is essential and is like the business card that is given to the visitor. This should include all possible means of communication with you that preferably includes a feedback box that the visitor can key in anything. This helps those visitors that do not have access to e-mail leave their communication immediately. This becomes all the more important if you are not equipped to sell your products from your website. Most websites today have live chat features to facilitate a virtual visiting experience. These solutions are available from about 50$ a month where in agents who can assist your visitor are deployed on a 24*7 basis.
If you believe that your services can be sold online, it is always beneficial to have a shopping cart facility added to your website. Ideally you should be able to collect payments and deliver goods online. Alternatively, you can collect the customer information and contact them to confirm the order and ship it for Cash On Delivery. You can make your website e-commerce ready so that you can collect and deliver goods online using credit cards or internet banking for a fee upwards of 50$.
Another important aspect that a physical office facilitates is the workspace and facilities for carrying out the job. This can be replaced by a computer with internet connection complete with a VOIP phone. All the documentation can be done using digital signatures and soft copies thereby helping you go green and save a lot of money that you would have to incur otherwise. For a start, if you are hiring employees in a work from home mode, this set-up can prove to be extremely beneficial. I recommend that you take advantage of Google Apps to provide solutions for most of the functions listed here. You get a document repository with free software that won’t compel you to buy software licenses and meet the legal regulations.
For the finance and compliance planning, today even conventional offices totally depend on ERP software. Application providers like salesforce.com have been successful in bringing almost all these software without any purchasing costs and hardware costs using cloud computing.
So as we see from the above, it is very much possible today to run your business from an office that is totally virtual! Doing this saves you a lot of costs. For legal issues, you can register your business having your home as address and cut down on the rentals/ any other expenditure you would have to incur.
Do share your thoughts..
-Pavan Pendyala
Sometimes I wonder how this is not more common. it's unbelievably unconventional to have to go to an office every day, as opposed to working at home!
ReplyDeleteTrue, but there are a lot of companies moving to this model providing flexibility to employees while cutting operational cost.
ReplyDeleteIn fact, I heard on the radio that one ad agency based out of Dallas had 3 offices and 20 employees and was making losses. That company let all employees work remote and got down to a one room office and started making profits. This trend seems to be picking up even with fortune companies like bank of america.