Co-Working in Virtual Office Centers: The Professional Isolation Solution

The number of corporate employees and entrepreneurs who work from a home office and on the road is exploding. We expect to see this trend continue as business owners and corporate executives realize the benefits of lower operational costs, greener business practices, and flexibility (read: talent retention) that comes with working from offsite.

However, though these are real and measurable benefits for business, there are also a few downsides to working from home. Many entrepreneurs feel lonely and isolated working by themselves for long periods of time. As liberating as it is to own your own business and be out of the corporate lifestyle, there are still tangible benefits to the social interaction that comes from working with others.

This is where a virtual office really starts to shine. Coworking is less about desks and walls and infrastructure than about a different way to work – where independent professionals can enjoy the social and collaborative benefits of working in a shared office space – and the concept is spreading. There are approximately 16.2 million self-employed teleworkers and 12.4 employed teleworkers. If you're one of them then you know that the initial freedom that comes from working from home can be limiting in time in terms of productivity and creativity, and lacking the benefits of camaraderie that come from working with others.

While co-working can be extremely informal , a virtual office serves as a framework that combines community of coworking with the professional support that business needs.

Co-working offers several major benefits for solo entrepreneurs, especially when it comes to creativity:

Change of setting = change of perspective.

Sometimes even just a change of perspective can be enough to create a breakthrough. Co-working in a virtual office environment rather than your standard home office can help get a new perspective on your work.

Collaborative environment can lead to new ideas.

Although each user of the co-working environment is working on their individual projects, collaboration is encouraged. Bouncing ideas off of the person next to you and talking through problems is a way to develop new ideas. Another co-worker, even in a different field, can offer fresh perspective to your problem.

Co-working can lead to more opportunities.

Working with other entrepreneurs in a co-working location is also a terrific networking opportunity. You never know who you might meet at your co-working location. One day you might be working with someone who turns out to be the perfect fit for a referral – or vice versa. You could potentially find a joint venture partner that you can work with in order to take your business to the next level. At the very least, you'll get to know people running businesses in your area that have similar goals.

Growth In Virtual Office Shifts To Enterprise

Hoteling and Alternative Workplace Solutions were the buzzwords of the last decade in the corporate workplace. They may soon be replaced by Virtual Office and On-demand Workplaces.
Large corporations started to drift away from standard office settings in the 90's when large firms like Accenture, Sun Microsystems, or Cisco Systems pioneered non-dedicated office space. Employees would show up at work and reserve a workstation on a first come first serve basis or via an online reservation system. A new "hotdesking" world was born.

Asset utilization surveys have shown that an average workstation in a traditional office environment is used only 35% of the time during business hours. From the perspective of the CFO, this means that two third of the time the under-utilized asset is wasted. Companies that have implemented hotdesking environments have reported increased in asset utilization ratios from 35% to 65%, thereby reducing the waste in half. What is good news for the CFO may not be as good news for office building owners. Companies now need a smaller footprint to accommodate the same employee base. A large segment of Fortune 500 companies have implemented programs with non-dedicated office space. At IBM, already 42% of the workforce does not have a dedicated office.

The next frontier will be to achieve 100% utilization, simply by outsourcing the workplace altogether and eliminating company (not just employee) dedicated office space.

Laurent Dhollande, CEO of Cloud Officing Corp, explained: "It makes a lot more sense for Cisco and Hewlett-Packard to rely on a network of on-demand office spaces, available in thousands of locations around the globe on a pay-per-use basis, rather than to rely on a few captive touchdown spaces. We are building this network for them".

None of this is new to start-ups and bootstrap entrepreneurs. The use of Virtual Office space, one form of on-demand workplace, is widespread in the small businesses world as it enables them to cut costs, yet still give them access to professional offices and conference rooms to meet with clients or business partners when necessary. Today, larger companies are realizing the benefits of accessing similar forms of on-demand workplaces for their remote employees. In California, providers like Pacific Business Centers, a sister company to Cloud Officing Corp, are thriving on this new corporate demand.

Dave Evans, Futurist and Chief Technologist, Internet Business Solutions for Cisco stated in a recent Press Release "Employee mobility is a fact of life, and the business advantages are clear across many industries. Work is not a place anymore. It's a lifestyle."

Both small businesses and large enterprises realize the necessity of being mobile, but also need the business functionality of professional workplaces. Today's business professionals need to cover more territory with fewer assets, whether they are bootstrap entrepreneurs or they work for a Fortune 500 company. On-demand Workplaces enable them to do this without sacrificing functionality and professionalism. In the end, both productivity and profitability are increased.

About Pacific Business Centers and Cloud Officing Corp

The Pacific Business Centers group of companies (PBC) operate on-demand office space in California, with access to over 650 locations worldwide, under a hosted model the company refers to as "Workplace-as-a-ServiceTM". Cloud Officing Corp, an affiliate of PBC, operates the Cloud Virtual OfficeTM brand and is building a ubiquitous network of Virtual Office touchdown locations for mobile workers, in partnership with owners of commercial office buildings.