Can A Virtual Office Really Make A Difference To Profits?

The idea of a virtual office is simple, it’s an office that doesn’t impact on any physical space in your business. This is beneficial for many reasons, one of which being financial – but it does beg the question, do virtual offices really make a difference to profits?

There are a number of case studies that we could look to in order to prove that this is the case. One of these, which was discussed in the last Virtual Office MadeSimple blog post, was that of manufacturing company Bete – who managed to save £50,000 a year.

So, it’s certainly safe to say that there is potential – but let’s look at some other examples of how a virtual office can work in terms of profits. You might already realise the impact, so choose a virtual office package now to help grow your business today.

Savings & Gains

The most significant aspect of a virtual office’s impact on profits is in savings. Writing for Entrepreneur.com Chelsea Berler states “Cutting unnecessary overheads from their budget and giving their employees flexibility are some of the biggest perks of creating a virtual office”.

The savings from a rapid enhancement in efficiency is where the real difference is made to profits. This works in the following ways:

• Travel – If you can save on an office space, you don’t have to travel. This can represent significant savings for you as a business owner, but also for employees. It was reported by Sophie Christie in The Telegraph that the average cost of a career-long commute is £50,000.
• Cost-Efficiency – By not having a constant space, and perhaps renting meeting rooms or workspaces as and when required, a business can remain very cost-efficient. For example Virtual Office MadeSimple provides the kind of meeting room hire London based companies can use for almost any type of business activity – meaning a business can save on rent in one of the most expensive areas of the UK.
• Mobility – We live in a global business age, and that means a company might work across international borders. Many people work for UK companies from abroad, and this freedom means you can take advantage of a global talent base whilst not being tied to a single geographical location.

The gains in freedom and flexibility have an impact on costs. This is the biggest aspect of a virtual office – and it’s the primary way that it makes a difference to profits.

By making use of a company mail forwarding service like ours you can still have all the perks of a designated office address – without the associated costs, which really helps keep profits up – especially when a business is just starting out and receipts are limited.

Tech Solutions Enhancing Effectiveness Of A Business.. And It’s Profits

One of the biggest benefits of maintaining a virtual office space is that you can take advantage of tech solutions provided by cloud based software. There are a lot of different software solutions – but the efficiency of them is a good indicator for how well they impact profits.

By taking your business virtual, the effectiveness of your business can be greater than that of a physical office. So, tech solutions used in a good virtual office make efficiency much greater. Studies have shown that remote workers using tech are are more productive.

Writing in the Harvard Business Review, analysis from Nicholas Bloom on Chinese travel agency Ctrip revealed that “people working from home completed 13.5% more calls than the staff in the office did”.

The reason for this is sometimes disputed, with little concrete data available, but Bloom offers his own thoughts:

“One-third of the productivity increase, we think, was due to having a quieter environment, which makes it easier to process calls. At home people don’t experience what we call the “cake in the break room” effect. Offices are actually incredibly distracting places. The other two-thirds can be attributed to the fact that the people at home worked more hours. They started earlier, took shorter breaks, and worked until the end of the day. They had no commute. They didn’t run errands at lunch. Sick days for employees working from home plummeted”.

It’s fascinating, but the benefits of tech solutions in a virtual office on productivity and ultimately profits is a great way for digitally switched on businesses to expand.

Keeping Efficiency & Profits Tied Together With A Virtual Office

If you look at the data, it’s plain to see that there is a lot of different types of business making use of a virtual office. There are many ways you can enhance a business, with the primary one being the efficiency of it. Increased efficiency means increased profits – which is the key place where virtual offices create an impact on company profits.

So to boost profits in your business, choose a virtual office package today. Our packages start from just £24.99 per month and can be expanded and tailored to your individual business needs.

Thanks for reading. If you would like more information make sure you check out the rest of our blog. It is a great resource and serves as a good knowledge base – particularly relevant will be the ‘Business’ section.

By Alex Novakovic at MadeSimple – Find Alex on Google+

Resources:
http://www.theguardian.com/small-business-network/2014/mar/06/virtual-office-smart-move
http://www.londonpresence.com/blog/virtual-offices-saving-the-environment-and-business-costs
http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/245903″>http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/245903
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/household-bills/10792453/Commuting-costs-50000-over-a-career.html