Virtual Offices: The Global Phenomenon

The internet, faster and more reliable communication and collaborative tools are allowing people to come closer on teams that are no longer co-located. In fact, the whole concept ‘globalization’ is pushing work all over the world with independent people and teams working anywhere and everywhere. They are refereed as ‘virtual’ mostly because they don’t communicate and interact in a traditional face-to-face manner.

With ever-increasing prices of real estate, in top cities, the ‘virtual office’ concept has become an attractive phenomenon to all kinds of business people. Company can be located at a particular place, but its employees conduct their day-to-day business affairs from different locations as per their convenience. With virtual office, workplace has practically no boundaries with employees located all over the world.

The physical barriers that was required for the employees to be in an specific location to accomplish their duties are gone by constant use of telephone, computer, cell phones, fax machines and high speed internet access. In this high-tech knowledge-based world of business, virtual working is one of the fastest trends.

With more people telecommuting than ever, working from home or from any remote location is on the rise and increasingly sought after by employees. While telecommuting save companies money, they are investing in good technologies for their off-site workers. Video conferencing is an ideal way to keep off-site workers linked to the main office. Telecommunication in virtual offices represents a new way of working that offers unprecedented levels of flexibility and autonomy to workers, causing an absolute revolution in the workplace of tomorrow.

As virtual office software like PDAs, cellular phones, internet access continually improve; there is a turn in facilitating global collaboration and redefining the concept of workplace. More and more companies are realizing that the global market can be a distinct advantage to their business.

Technology is changing rapidly and with it, the way we work. Today, people who work remotely also connect very well with their colleagues and customers as never before. Virtual working becomes more important as the next generation demands greater flexibility in their workplace and in choosing their lifestyle to balance their personal and professional life.

Virtual offices are showing stunning improvements in cost saving, productivity and employee morale because of remote working. In today’s global environment, workplace boundaries are more expansive than ever before with employees located all over the world. And with a virtual office, a business may have one physical location, while the employees conduct their day-to-day business affairs, negotiations and discussions from any place of their convenience-either from home, hotel or café.

Employees working remotely enjoy the flexibility of time, space and tasks. A flexibility of space allows workers to be at home while connecting with their customers who are thousands of miles away from them. In a virtual office environment, workers have the flexibility to perform varied roles and tasks- from an assistant to a manager as per the need of the hour.