The era of the physical office space may be dwindling for small businesses. Most small companies are now choosing to go to virtual offices. Many functions of physical offices are now being done more comfortably by virtual offices from the comfort of the employees’ own homes. Business is moving into the cloud, from job marketplaces such as odesk, to financial management systems, and to online fax services . Small businesses are now able to save money because they are able to reduce overhead costs like for space rentals, utilities and even cleaning fees! They are now also free to sample online services that they think they might need, without the fear of being charged long term if it doesn’t work out. Many online service providers offer free periods to try their services. Listed below are options for The Cloud.
- Communication
There are many programs or services like GoogleVoice or Skype that offer free or low rates for local and international calls. You can also find Online fax services for sending faxes from home even without a fax machine. There’s also Campfire that offer private chatting for meetings. Also, Gotomeeting and Join.me for conference calls, share screens, or chats. All these ease communication.
- Collaboration
There are also ways for sharing, commenting, and editing documents online while all employees of a company are working all at the same time. Services like these are being offered by Sharepoint, GoogleDocs , and ConceptShare .
- Organization
Online calendars act as if they’re your personal assistants. You can put in your entire schedule and tasks, share with other co-workers or employees, or even invite people for meetings. A perfect example would be GoogleCalendar , a very user-friendly program.
- CRM or Customer relationship management
There are actually too many to be able to review here. Online CRM is just the best compared to server-based similar systems. Go to this link for more info. http://sales.about.com/od/leadgeneration/a/freecrmsoftware.htm
- Finance
Most of the banks now have online banking for integration of accounts online. You can view your transactions, balances, and do other transactions comfortably online. There are also programs that aid in organization of records or charts, such as Wesabe and Dimewise . You could even get financial loans from Prosper.
The Cloud absolutely makes life easier for small businesses. Give the virtual office a try!
James Kim is a writer for Choosewhat.com, which provides product reviews and test data for business services and products. Choosewhat.com’s goal is to help small companies make informed buying decisions on business solutions that help their business.
