In the days before the Internet and VoIP, you always knew what a “company” was all about. It was a place you went to every day, you sat in a cubicle with a phone and some office equipment, and generally speaking, success was evident by the physical size of the facility. If a company had two or three floors of a skyscraper, and a couple hundred employees, most people would think that company to be pretty successful. And what’s more, people would think that the company with a couple hundred employees was naturally more successful than the company with five employees. That’s just not the case any more.
The success of a company is not measured by the number of employees, or the size of its office–not any more. The “virtual company” is a new business model. Some of the most successful companies operate out of small offices staffed by only a handful of people, with the bulk of the work being done by telecommuters, teleworkers, and contractors. Because of technologies like VoIP, a company is no longer limited by geography, and they can get the best and the brightest people, regardless of where they may be. And of course, they can also be bargain hunters, and take advantage of offshore business centers, from which you can get highly competent “virtual assistant”, programmers, specialists, call center staff, and just about everything else.
Entrepreneurs, to be successful, must switch to a “virtual” mindset. The modern start-up business plan more often than not, does not include line items for large amounts of office space and a high in-house staffing requirement. Venture capitalists are keenly aware of this trend, and they too, are demanding that the start-ups they fund pay close attention to the economies that can be gained from a virtual business model. Starting a new company? Need a call center? Doing it in-house is no longer the standard, and increasingly, you just can’t afford to run your own call center and stay competitive.
VoIP isn’t just for making phone calls–it’s the heart of the modern business.
