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Given today’s environs, investing in a physical office is foolishness unless your business demands it – like a retail store or a huge office backed-up by corporates. For a small business owner, it is not necessary to have a brick-and-mortar office. If you have one, it’s fine. However, if you are started out today, there is a way to do everything virtually. Here’s how:
Pick Up People Online and allow them to work virtually
Finding and retaining good people to work with has always been a challenging proposition for many companies world-wide. However, once the company is set-up on the Internet and you are looking for help globally, you have a wider pool to cast your net into. You can now use elance.com or guru.com to find the right people for your business. Almost anything that can be done on the computer can be done using these resources.
Manage resources online
The only problem with élance.com and guru.com is that the projects you might post there are strictly project-based deliverables. For instance, a web designing project you need to get done is posted, you’d receive bids which state that it could be done for so-and-so price within a week or two. Sometimes, this kind of set-up might not work for you in case you pay people per hour or if you felt the need for extreme supervision and vigilance. Use documentation software, scheduling software and collaboration software along with time-tracking software to manage your employees effectively.
You may even use odesk.com since it already has a lot of sophisticated technology to keep track of your providers’ activity using time-tracking and automatic payment facilities. Alternatively, you could then use basecamp, activecollab or some other collaboration software and have strict vigilance on team activities – it’d be just like working in the same floor of a company, except that it isn’t.
Use online data back-up
Why invest in expensive servers and data centers when you could just jump into the promise of “cloud computing” and use data back-up services on the Internet? Precious data like consumer records, financial information and any other sensitive data regarding your business doesn’t need to stay on-site and be at the risk of theft, loss or damage. Just activate any of the online back-up services like mozy.com, carbonite.com or livedrive.com and let things take care of themselves. You data is stored off-site in a remote location and with two such services in two different places, you will have more than sufficient data back-up.
By using the tips herein, I am sure you could start a company almost with no investment and all set to flush in great returns almost from day one. It takes smarts; but it isn’t difficult. Have you thought of setting up your business yet? What do you think of setting-up virtual offices for almost any kind of business?
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Isn’t it necessary for a company to have a registered office somewhere..? If I am opening a sole propeitorship or a LLP then is it necessary for me to have a registered office? Is that a requirement for registering a company/LLP/Sole Propeitorship?
Hi Shashi,
You do need a physical address to register a company on, but you don’t need to own an “office” as such. You could register your home as your office if you are a solo-owner.
An address is certainly a requirement but your home address will do. The requirement for an office is totally up to you; but some kinds of business can do away without one. Which business do you plan to open? It all depends on that. Do let me know.