Office Options for New Businesses
October 1st, 2007 | by Samantha Middleton
Have you recently opened your business or are thinking of creating one? If so, this article is for you. I explain office space services here and how each of them may or may not be useful for you.
Starting out
Whilst you need to make an impression to potential new clients - perhaps using a virtual receptionist (virtual office) - you cannot yet afford to make a long term commitment or pay high amounts to purchase an office building.
Virtual Office
A good choice at this stage, even before a serviced office may be needed, is the use of a virtual office package from someone like Regus or MWBEX.
Virtual offices can consist of a few products, namely telephone answering, the use of a prestigious address and the use of business lounges (in the case of Regus) around the country for a certain amount of hours per month.
While you still may be working from home or at an undesirable location at this point, you can give the image that you are indeed located elsewhere (London,
Manchester etc) and have phone answering services at the quality of a major blue-chip company. A rather good company that offers only reception style services is Moneypenny. AllDayPA are also recommended as for very small businesses there is a no monthly fee option with charges ONLY for the calls that you receive.
However, if you can afford it, the Virtual Office service from Regus is highly recommended by us as it has greater options and is almost a business out of the box setup.
Be sure to check which companies offer short and long deals for a virtual office ’stay’ and also take into account things such as digital phone networks and mail forwarding costs.
serviced offices
It is really worth shopping around when it comes to finding your new home. With current property prices on the increase, I would really recommend for any new business to use serviced office space from the very beginning. There are many companies in the UK offering this service, from Regus to MWBEX to Avanta - all have their pros and cons but all seem to offer a great service from my experience in the industry.
If you search on a local level, then there will be individual companies offering space for new businesses from their one and only location. Using a larger company has extra benefits that can allow you to use services throughout the network up and down the country - but in exchange you lose the personal touch.
It really is down to personal preference. For example, if I was to start a business with a local slant then I would probably choose an independent provider where the cost may be a little less. If I wanted to sell my product on a wider basis and needed to travel throughout the country for meetings then I would probably choose someone like Regus so that I could make use of a meeting room in Dundee or a business lounge in London for example, should I need to.
Summary
In short, start of with services that do not stretch you too much at first. Perhaps use a virtual office service that allows you to also use a business address in London to give your potential clients a better view of your company. Once you have been trading for a while and need the use of a serviced office, either upgrade your VO contract or transfer to another serviced office offering that provides you with the perfect working environment.
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One Response to “Office Options for New Businesses”
By James Welch on Oct 2, 2007 | Reply
Knowing how good the Regus Virtual Office product is, my choice would be this. Some great addresses in their range of business centres and the business lounge service is fantastic.