Your Office Anywhere Conference Reveals That The Virtual Office And The Coworking Changed The Paradigm

In the second edition of the conference's cycle of the Avila Business Centers, the several speakers where unison on referring that mobility and crisis changed the renting market and created a huge opportunity for the virtual office and the coworkin

The Avila Business Centers, company of turnkey physical work spaces for renting and leader in the virtual offices business, organized the second edition of the national conference about virtual offices, coworking and other models which represent the office of the future. The "Your Office Anywhere" conference took place in the past 25th May 2012, in the Microsoft Auditorium at Parque das Nações, and pointed out the main tendencies in the office rental. At the final of the conference, speakers were unison on affirming that the crescent mobility of companies' work forces and the need of costs reduction changed the market paradigm and opened a huge opportunity for the virtual offices and coworking.

According to Rui Pereira da Silva, former CEO of Solidnetworks, a technological company which betted on a Business Centre with a turnkey service at their beginning, the image of the offices is "very important for partners and for those looking for the companies, and choosing an Office Centre, such as the Avila Business Centers, is an opportunity to have an image of excellence without overcharge the monthly budget of the company». The now Public Services & Health Director of Reditus Consulting, was one of the speakers of the event and told the experience of the creation of Solidnetworks, which was recently bought by Reditus, and underlined the importance that choosing a Business Centre had to the success of the project, namely the fact of "having a turnkey service, with a fast setup and overall with a low renting fee ».

For Marcos Santos, Director of the Business Office Division of Microsoft Portugal, the workers mobility increase changed the way companies look at their offices. The maxim of Your Office Anywhere, Anytime is increasingly more a reality and the virtual offices present here an unavoidable tendency, since they allow to work from home, without a fixed work station, but keeping a prestige address without having to spend much money, and pay for services, such as the renting of meeting rooms, when needed. The Microsoft responsible pointed out the fact that "the increase of the tendency to use collaborative platforms, which allow companies' professionals to collaborate in real time in order to improve processes". Converted into the office market, this concept is being mirrored in an increase of the Coworking tendency, where besides sharing a physical space, companies may share services and firm partnerships which allow them to approach the market in a stronger and complete way.

«In order to win in the renting market, virtual offices and office centres should invest on innovation, offering a service truly complete and effective based on the new technologies, defends Pedro Aniceto, Product & Marketing Manager of the GMS Store, an Apple Premium Reseller. Technologies such as the myOffice application, of the Avila Business Centers, which sends the client all the information online and on real time (messages, phone calls, correspondence arrival) and allows also to book online meeting rooms in other office centres of other countries, are tools of extreme use and may be decisive elements at the time of choosing offices. "Those using the myOffice hardly can live without the application, because is of extreme use», said Pedro Aniceto. "It allows to work without loosing time, doe you can verify who called the office while you were out and the messages left, and afterwards it is so intuitive that it does not has and learning curve », revealed.

The virtual offices can also be the right choice for adventures abroad. This was another of the important conclusions of the conference, which point out this mobility as being an excellent alternative for companies looking for businesses outside Portugal. For Raquel Santana, Business Center Manager of the Avila Business Centers, the mobility of the virtual office "offers a higher credibility, an easy company setup, which can be done in only 24 hours, and a bigger flexibility and credibility close to partners and international clients ». In the opinion of the responsible, this is «the best option for companies thinking on internationalization, because besides rationalizing costs it also allows them to be prepared for a sustainable growth, being Starbucks and Google examples of it, by using this kind of offices in their internationalization strategy,».

This year event of the "Your Office Anywhere" «overcame expectations once again, both at the level of audience, the quality of the interventions of the speakers and conclusions token" revealed Carlos Gonçalves, CEO of the Avila Business Centers. «It was clear that virtual offices and coworking are going to gain relevance in the market this year already and in the next ones, mainly due to the dynamism and economies they represent facing traditional offices", continued.

Considering the success of the "Your Office Anywhere" conferences, and the importance they represent to companies and to the market, the Avila Business Centers is already preparing a third edition, which should approach themes such as the use of new technologies to potentiate a work place and, as it couldn't be otherwise, the virtual office and Coworking themes.