About

Description

A virtual office is the physical address for a person or a team located anywhere in the world, who communicates with customers, suppliers and others mainly through technologies such as the internet and phone. A much superior solution to a simple mailbox service, the virtual office allows anyone to avoid having to disclose a home address, providing a corporate sounding address that can confidently be used in any money generating activity, without fear of identity theft or coming accross as a shabby mom-and-pop operation.

Cost

Because a virtual office requires no physical space, it is much cheaper than a traditional office due to the lack of overhead. Gone are the high costs of renting or buying a building, maintaining it and providing furniture and services for onsite employees and customers. Besides a small nominal fixed fee, all virtual office costs are variable so you only incurr them only when your activity really requires it. Your cash-flow becomes free of the fixed expenses that kill so many business at start-up or when activity slows down.

Flexibility

Using a virtual office means employees can work from home, saving on commute time and travel expenses. Virtual office workers are often judged on what they produce rather than the time they actually spend producing it. Thus they can work according to their natural rhythms rather than by following some imposed outside schedule. They become more productive and happier since they can better balance job, family and leisure.

Talent

A virtual office can afford to hire workers based on their expertise and cost-effectiveness rather than their location. For example, a designer might live in Paris, a programmer in Tokyo, a shipper in Los Angeles and a manager in New York. High-speed communications allows them to work together daily without their needing to move or be physically near one another.

Sales Reach

The market for a particular product may be too small when confined to a particular location. However, when sold across the the world, a product may become profitable. Setting up physical offices in several locations can whittle those earnings down to nothing. But hiring salespeople in different locations who communicate virtually is cost-effective. Those salespeople can visit customers in the traditional manner. They can also use phone and internet marketing to extend their reach and generate more leads for the virtual company.

Taxes and Asset Protection

Having a virtual office in a country different from the one you reside in may also allow you to benefit from better and more aggressive tax planning, more advantageous banking secrecy laws, advantages in forming companies for international trade through tax treaties, no interest tax, no inheritance taxes, no capital gains tax, no individual tax, and many others. Besides tax, other advantages may include anonymity, asset protection, foreign property holding through a company in a third country, limiting of liability in business transactions, unrestricted flow of capital, transfer of assets etc. etc.