In the past, a company was like a long corridor serving a number of offices, and each employee had his or her own.
Everyone was accumulating a multitude of paper documents.
Times have changed: open space, telecommuting, digitization and virtual offices have conquered our ways of working and are becoming the new way of working for the next few decades.
This new organization developed in the early 2000s in tandem with the rise of start-ups from the United States.
Virtual offices are still relatively unknown, yet they represent a major growth potential for companies.
A virtual office is an online service that lets you manage your business and files directly from an online dashboard.
It enables you to store data relating to your company's organization, communication, accounting or collaborative files. Any user can access it securely from a computer or cell phone connected to the Internet.
So you can work in the cloud , and work more comfortably. The virtual desktop is sometimes referred to as DaaS (Desktop As A Service) or VDI (Virtual Desktop Infrastructure).
The virtual office offers a host of advantages for your business, including :
- 24/7 access: You can consult or modify your data at any time of the day or night, including weekends and public holidays. Above all, it enables you to create a specific work environment for managing your business: from your computer or your smartphone.
- A tool that can be configured and customized: the virtual office administrator is free to define access and modification rights for each file or folder, according to the needs of each employee. This also ensures that each employee only has access to data that is strictly necessary for his or her work;
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Greater security: you won't lose any data if your computer is stolen, thanks to online storage. In the face of increasing computer piracy, you can work with complete peace of mind;
- Greater flexibility: you can manage all areas of your business from your virtual office: mail management, meeting room rental, telephone calls, mail management...
Many virtual office providers offer support services to all their customers, making it easier to maintain their products, update them and intervene promptly in the event of difficulties.
Any company can use a domiciliation company to establish its head office in a location other than its place of work.
In particular, it can benefit from a prestigious address, which raises its profile and makes it more attractive to new customers.
This mode of operation implies the adoption of a decentralized solution for managing mail, switchboard, administrative and legal formalities, for example.
Connecting these two important business locations can be made easier by the use of a virtual office.
As a result, employees are freed from many time-consuming and unrewarding tasks, and can focus on other, higher value-added tasks.
Many companies focus on three key criteria when choosing the most suitable solution:
- A comprehensive solution with all necessary services and a maintenance contract;
- A la carte services to suit all budgets;
- A solution accessible on all devices, with all operating systems.
Virtual desktops are attracting more and more companies because of the cost savings and productivity gains they can generate: by improving the creation, storage, backup and sharing of data between a company's collaborators, they deliver significant time and cost savings.
In concrete terms, it's an effective way of increasing margins without raising prices. The simplicity of information management also facilitates customer-supplier relations.
They are also solutions guaranteeing better security in the face of the upsurge in computer attacks. Numerous solutions already exist on the market to meet the needs of all businesses.
Written by our expert Paul LASBARRERES-CANDAU
January 5, 2018
