What is a virtual office?

Virtual Office in Nairobi: What is a virtual office and why your business should consider it…

The current pandemic has seen a rise in the adoption of remote working by a large portion of the workforce.

Over the period many businesses have realized that normal work can still take place, even if they aren’t sitting in the same room as their boss and colleagues.

It is likely that even as the world goes back to normal some elements of this virtual workplace will remain.

Businesses that were previously forced to cut costs will soon start to think about growing again. And for many, a virtual office environment could provide the flexible and cost-efficient support they need.

What Is a Virtual Office?

A virtual office  is part of the flexible workspace industry that provides businesses with any combination of services, space and technology, without those businesses bearing the capital expenses of owning or leasing a traditional office.

Virtual offices give businesses a physical address and office-related services without the overhead of a long lease and administrative staff. With a virtual office, employees can work from anywhere but still have things like a mailing address, phone answering services, meeting rooms, and videoconferencing.

Although a virtual office in most cases does not occupy a physical location, its main role is to provide a suite of service-based solutions that allow a company to remotely connect with clients, employees and suppliers – and to create and maintain a solid presence in any market or territory of the company’s choosing.

How Virtual Offices Work

Virtual offices operate as one unit to serve customers but do not exist in a fixed location. This type of set up is especially popular with startups and small businesses that want to minimize overhead. The creation of web-based office productivity software and services, such as videoconferencing, has helped drive the growth in virtual offices.

At Nairobi Garage, for instance, we have a virtual office package called The Club Space  package. The Club Space is an on-demand, super lean virtual office space solution that allows you to make e connections with Nairobi’s entrepreneurial community in a Club designed for your growth and productivity.

The greatest advantage that comes with taking this package with us is that the package allows you a fully virtual office space or as your regular office space – there’s no limit on the number of times you come to the space.

Benefits of Virtual Offices

Corporate Mailing address

Virtual offices offer you a professional mailing address.  By signing up for a Virtual Office, you create a physical office without committing a lease obligation.  A virtual office gives you the unexpected appearance of working at a physical office location, even though you do not in reality, along with a physical address for correspondence. So there is a little administrative relief for pennies a day.

Increased business authority

An advantage of a virtual office is that the employers can take up home-based businesses and get the work done by the employees, remotely. Thus, the benefits of having a virtual office play an important role when you project your company’s availability in multiple locations.

Cost-effective practice

A real-time office may cost you a huge expense in many aspects. Either you have to rent or lease the commercial space, pay utilities, buy furniture, equipment and technology. The advantages of virtual offices cut down those expenses and help you in saving some cash, which you can invest in future business expansion.

Flexibility of work

Flexibility at work makes employees more energetic, enthusiastic and interested in work. In some cases even more productive. They regard it as a special privilege endowed by the company to log in at their convenience and even work during mobility or with their mobile phones. Such advantages of virtual offices save not only time but improve overall work attitude.

Increased team size

Without the barrier of fixed workspace and legal formalities, you can smoothly increase your team size with the benefits of having a virtual office. This, in turn, creates a positive impact on your business growth as well as on your employees and customers.

Increase scalability

Having virtual offices helps you in scaling up and down your resources without facing any consequences and helps grow your business constantly.

Easy setup

Virtual offices are easy to set up and easy to shut down as well, without the need to spend anything additional.

If you are working from home and need a drop-in virtual office space to work from, this is a great option. Or if you have a full-time office space, but just need something closer to home, or more connected to the entrepreneurial ecosystem – this is a winner.