Imagine running your office from New York; your office is basically not made of concrete, wood and glass and whatnot, but it is an e-workplace. Your employees are scattered throughout the world. While your web designer is located in India, your app development expert is in Indonesia and your graphic design team is located in Brazil. All of your employees are connected to you through their laptops and webcams. There is a fully integrated top-notch IT infrastructure consisting of software, online tools and expensive online business solutions that keep your employees connected to each other as well as with you. From video chat to data transfer, everything is fully organized and disciplined. Welcome to the 21st century concept of a corporate office.

Office space is now virtual

Virtual offices are now in. Sooner or later, the top notch companies will also learn about the viability of virtual offices. While in past office space certainly meant a physical space, and sometimes a complete floor of a skyscraper, this is not the situation anymore. Workplaces are fast becoming modern and innovative. While Google needs Googleplex to run its huge operations, some companies now prefer offices that are not physical, but virtual. A virtual office saves the nonproductive expenditures and makes it possible for the entrepreneur to be electronically in touch with their employees scattered throughout the world.

Offices are getting smarter

The internet proved to be the miracle of 21st century. It devastated the local values and cultures and now all the world is connected through a small blue ‘f’, a multi-colored Google and other virtual revolutions like them. So, if common people can be smart and opt to have a virtual social life instead of living bore and dull real life, why can businesses do the same. An office space can now be totally virtual and those huge nonproductive offices of the early 21st century’s corporate culture are simply out of fashion. All you need is a very well integrated IT infrastructure and a team of brilliant people and you can take your e-workplace simply anywhere.

How and what?

When we share this optimism with corporate executives, they have big questions on their faces. How a virtual office space can be a substitute for proper physical offices? What are the technologies that provide a match to a real-life corporate environment and connect employees in China with the employer in the USA? And the biggest of all questions, how this will impact the corporate culture and environment?

First thing first, a real-life workplace can be simply replaced by a virtual office if a flawless check and balance system is devised; an employer can do well if they manage to keep check on their employees. This takes us to the second question; what technologies can put a corporate executive in total control of their worldwide employees? Well, for the moment we have FreeConferenceCall, Skype, Google Drive and webcams etc. but in the future, there will be sensory recognition software that will integrate a computer totally with human brain. There will be virtual conferencing technology and miniature wireless communication tools to make communication cheaper, quicker and smarter.

Lastly, we worry about how this will impact corporate culture. Well, an e-workplace will definitely not look like a sophisticated corporate office, but it will bring positive changes. First of all, it will save you the nonproductive corporate expenditures e.g. building rent and expenses incurred over maintenance etc. secondly, it will also save your employees the 9 AM traffic jam and they will enjoy working from home. So, our advice is, go virtual before your competitors.