Virtual Office

[Joe D]

I have a small serviced office suite (24m2) that I was showing a prospective tenant through earlier this week.

Prospect advised that they were currently in the CBD but downsizing operation and that they only intended to use the office a few days per week but also wanted an office to have their business address registered at.

The office suite seemed to tick the boxes, however, prospect subsequently advised that the Directors had opted for a virtual office based in the Perth CBD.

I'm not familiar with "Virtual Office", but is this the new norm for small portable businesses?

 

[The Y-man]

In this day and age you can run a whole manufacturing operation from your bedroom, where previously you would have needed a factory and warehouses....

The Y-man

 

[nhg]

Mate uses a virtual office. There are good ones and bad ones.

Essentially you pay a fee, which gives your business an address and a 'receptionist' who answers when you call. Usually a lady with a phone with a dozen different lines, each line being a different company.

With a good set-up, anyone sussing out the business would at face value believe it was an established professional business.

Brilliant IMO.

 

[westminster]

The other bonus of these - along with the perks listed - is access to book board rooms and meeting rooms at the location.

I used to work for an Adelaide company and there were 2 of us based in Perth so we ran out of virtual/serviced office. There was a reception desk who took all calls and then put them through to us (in the office or our mobiles), they could also do typing, collect mail etc, we did presentations in the board room, we all had a pincode to the printer and so owned nothing onsite besides our laptops.

 

[Ideo]

My partner used to manage a serviced office offering both virtual and real offices.

It's a good system for companies that are a bit too big to be operating out of a house, but too small to have an office/are on the road a lot.

If they go and check out the address it will show up as a serviced office complex, so looks perfectly fine.

 

[Corey Batt]

They are useful for smaller businesses which need a professional presence.

Makes you wonder what this means for small office outfits, how they will adjust to this style of leasing...

Three offices next to mine were leased by a company, they pulled the pin at the last lease recently. All the staff now work from home and use a virtual office for their presence.

 

[Aaron_C]

I just prefer to own my own shop. For a small outfit like that it's not a lot of money to buy.

 

[Suzy912]

IMHO virtual offices are the way of the future for a lot of sectors. With increasing technology and rising costs it makes a lot of sense to outsourse and work from home if that is an option.