Enabling a Virtual Office

Online working environments can cut costs

In today’s economy, companies want to cut costs while maintaining current productivity levels with possibly fewer employees. That’s a tall task, but new technologies are allowing companies to create virtual, online working environments that are secure and easy to use while providing better performance and functionality than a traditional computing environment.

In a traditional computing environment, all employees physically come to an office to work on computers purchased, configured and managed by the company’s IT staff.

This computer management is a huge undertaking that’s necessary to keep data safe and computers running smoothly. Personalization and flexibility are sacrificed for security and performance.

The alternative is to deliver computing desktops and applications online to any computer Рanywhere, anytime Рthat remain physically separate from an end user“s computer, transforming it into just an access point or terminal.

Reduced costs
Businesses spend about $7,600 for each worker on office space, according to the Real Estate Executive Board. But if employees can work from anywhere, they don’t have to be at the office – at least not all of the time. This means less physical office space is required.

• Here are other ways virtual work environments can cut costs:
• Travel expenses are reduced, and employees will appreciate not spending as much on fuel.
• Employees can be hired from non-metropolitan areas, and they often will work for lower wages than workers in cities.
• Providing a better work-life balance to employees will increase employee satisfaction, which lowers employee turnover rates.
• Employees can use their own computers and laptops without the company purchasing one or both for every worker. Some companies provide an allowance for a computer and let employees purchase whatever they want. Increased productivity A virtual office can increase your sales and support presence by having employees distributed farther apart, allowing you to serve more customers in a larger geographic area.

Virtual offices can boost productivity in other ways:

• Collaboration tools allow far-flung employees to work together closely. In mergers and acquisitions, providing the new workforce instant access to needed data and applications can make them productive from Day One.
• Employees can customize their computers or even run Apple or Linux operating systems.
• IT departments will spend less time working on computers, freeing up time to work on more productive tasks and enabling employees to continue working instead of waiting for computers to be fixed.
• Of course, not every company can run a 100-percent virtual office. Most organizations, however, have begun adopting virtual environments for at least part of their workforces. Maybe it’s time to rethink how you deliver your applications and data.