As Thomas so aptly puts it, “Working from home is nothing new, but managing a business with employees scattered across the country has only recently become possible with new software and management techniques.”

The article points to Department of Labor statistics citing that between 13 million and 19 million Americans do most of their work at home.

Thomas interviews a man named Dan Guillory, CEO of a consulting firm named Innovations International, who works from home. Guillory didn’t always work from home. Thomas reports that he used to rent expensive office space in San Francisco, but he ditched it for a much more affordable virtual office. His staff is spread out across the country.

“Rent alone was $60,000 a year. In addition to that we also had hard line phones that we used; we also had servers that we used. There are a lot of hidden costs that you don’t necessarily think about,” Guillory told ABC.

Guillory said the benefit of the virtual office is that “you have more flexibility, but at the same time our expectations are a little bit different so there’s a price for that freedom to some extent.”

This is a great example of virtual office use – and I’m sure it wasn’t hard for Thomas to find a prime example in the San Francisco area. These days, you can go to any major city and find a stellar portrait of an entrepreneur who is taking advantage of the cost-savings, flexibility and efficiencies a virtual office can offer.

Expect to see more media coverage of virtual offices this year as companies like Davinci Virtual, United Virtual Offices, CESVirtualOffices and others continue making their value proposition known to the entrepreneurial world.

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Inc. magazine’s staff is underway with a virtual workplace experiment during February. That means its editors will work from home, co-working spaces, hotels and cafes. I am betting they’ll find that the editors are more productive and less stressed. What do you think? Especially the ones that work from home.

Inc. isn’t rushing into this blindly. Inc. Senior Writer Max Chafkin told Folio magazine that magazine staff talked to experts in the field of organizational behavior, as well as entrepreneurs who believe in virtual work, before launching the experiment. The Inc. crew also took surveys of their work habits, downloaded new software on their computers and smartphones, and created checklists that aim to help them collaborate from afar, Chafkin said.

Inc. editors are going to blog about the experience along the way, then publish an article on the pros and cons of virtual work and distributed workforces. I’ll be looking forward to that one. However the article comes out, one thing is certain… there is more and more attention being put on virtual workers – and that’s ultimately good thing for our industry.

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As Davinci Virtual President and CEO Bill Grodnick sees it, the new Web chat service is a logical extension of the firm’s boutique live answering services. Davinci’s virtual receptionists are already fully trained on our clients’ business, he says.

“We have used live Web chat successfully for years internally and we are very excited to offer this proven conversion tool to our customers and businesses worldwide,” Grodnick says. “Today, almost every company has a Web site. Businesses need to monetize their Web traffic and Davinci has the most cost effective solution to do so.”

So, then, what’s the cost? Just $49 a month. That’s a good price across the industry, so if you are in the market for Web chat services, this is a good time to give it a try. Of course, Davinci Virtual also wants to you use a virtual office space and its live reception services as well. For about $200 a month, you can get the whole kit and caboodle and give your business a virtual makeover for the New Year.

I’m not sure if Davinci Virtual has partnered with a live Web chat company to provide these services or if the company has developed its own technology. I have tried Davinci’s Web chat services in the past when inquiring about its services and found it to be an efficient, seamless experience. They key, then, is not the technology but the training of the virtual receptionists. On that end, I found Davinci’s virtual receptionists very professional, and able to answer all my questions. Let us know what you think…

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The Salt Lake City-based company just finished expanding of its North American headquarters. The facility additions come complete with a new state-of-the-art virtual support center floor that makes more room for the company to service its growing global customer base with virtual live receptionist services and other virtual office solutions.

“We are very excited to complete the build out of our additional support center — we have designed the work space to allow for great employee interaction while deploying the latest technologies and infrastructure,” says Martin Senn, COO of Davinci Virtual. “Adding the new virtual support center will give us enough capacity to double our business.”

Senn offered a keyphrase of which the industry should take note: “double our business.” That is telling. Davinci Virtual is clearly planning to make aggressive moves in the virtual office industry. The repercussions could be far-reaching. Davinci Virtual already offers more than 700 virtual office locations, including virtual office space in key metropolitans like New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and Atlanta.

Considering that Davinci Virtual is already the leading provider of turnkey virtual communications and virtual office solutions, the expanded headquarters and the possibilities it brings should drive even greater awareness of the benefits of virtual offices in a down economy. Expect to see Davinci Virtual making some growth-oriented announcements in 2010.

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Specifically, the survey reveals that only 15 percent of small- to mid-sized businesses (SMBs) have all their employees working from a single physical location. That’s a marked shift from the days when virtual office space and mobile work models were reserved for field staff and freelancers.

What’s driving the shift? In part, technology. Doubtless, the ability to access business systems from remote locations makes it easier for companies to employ virtual office models. But technology is not the only driver. The economy has also played a role in the shift. Companies large and small continue to seek creative ways to cut costs without jeopardizing their competitive edge. The virtual office model reduces overhead and opens up the labor pool to new geographic locations.

Key findings from the survey include:

• Nearly half (45%) of employees spend three quarters (75%) of their time conducting business away from the office.
• Only 15% of SMBs reported having all employees work from a single physical location.
• When working from outside the office, 80% of the businesses normally want to give the impression that their employees are in the office when receiving or making business phone calls outside of the office.
• 80% of the businesses normally want to give the impression that their employees are in the office when receiving or making business phone calls outside of the office.
• In 2010, nearly two-thirds (67%) of SMBs are planning to hire more employees and over half of them (57%) are planning to have these new employees work remotely and/or with mobile capabilities.

OK, now since RingCentral took all the trouble to conduct the survey, we need to give them a chance to plug their solution…

“This survey demonstrates that even with the trend toward a flexible, distributed office model, today’s business is not willing to compromise on the professionalism associated with a traditional office model,” says Vlad Shmunis, CEO of RingCentral.

“RingCentral Office is designed to meet the needs of the modern mobile business world. RingCentral facilitates the seamless integration of distributed employees into a single business phone system regardless of the employee’s choice of phones – mobile or fixed line. The best part is that businesses do not need to spend a single dollar in capital expenditure.”

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That means Davinci Virtual’s virtual office space solutions are now available in China, India, Indonesia, South Korea, Singapore, Taiwan, Japan and Australia.

To put things into perspective, the company was already offering virtual office solutions to more than 6,000 companies and entrepreneurs in the U.S., Canada, Europe, Central America, Asia and Australia. With the latest news, Davinci Virtual’s footprint just got a lot bigger.

“The continued addition of prime office locations enables Davinci Virtual to offer our virtual office customers a great selection of international countries and metropolitan cities,” says Bill Grodnik, president and CEO of Davinci Virtual. “Whether you need a virtual office in Atlanta, a virtual office in Chicago, a virtual office in New York, a virtual office in Los Angeles, or services anywhere else in the world — Davinci Virtual clearly is the provider of choice.”

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What’s more, the CDC reports, flu-related hospitalizations and deaths continue to go up nationwide and are above what is expected for this time of year.

As of 25 October 2009, worldwide there have been more than 440,000 laboratory confirmed cases of pandemic influenza H1N1 2009 and over 5,700 deaths reported to the World Health Organization.

All this has led FreedomVoice to propose telecommuting as a viable option to control the spread of the H1N1 virus in corporate office space. FreedomVoice says smart CEOs are taking precautions to end the daily commute of the potentially deadly virus.

“If an employee is feeling ill, they should be given the opportunity to work from home if they can still be productive,” says Eric Thomas, CEO of FreedomVoice. “If the entire company is infected with the flu at the same time it could be devastating.”

FreedomVoice is positioning telecommuting as a weapon against H1N1 – and it’s pushing its FreedomIQ Hosted VoIP PBX by FreedomVoice as an enabler for companies that want to have a back up plan in place. FreedomIQ is a VoIP phone system that you can utilize anywhere you have Internet access. Thomas says it’s perfect for telecommuters because it paves the way to unified messaging, advanced call reporting, automatic call distribution, and more for a value driven rate.

“According to recent research conducted by Techaisle, currently over 80 percent of businesses in the U.S. have a work at home policy,” says Thomas. “But all businesses have the ability to help alleviate fears associated with the H1N1 virus by allowing those concerned to work from home.”

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What does this mean for home offices and small businesses? Professional welcome greetings, phone menus, extension dialing, sophisticated call routing, voicemail, fax and other features – in HD quality! Of course, there is a catch. You have to purchase an IP business phone to compliment your Phone.com virtual office account.

“High Definition voice services are the future of telecommunications. Broadband and HD voice expand productivity and the range of applications,” says Jeff Pulver, industry pioneer and the organizer of the HD Communications Summit. “Standard definition voice is headed to the same place as dial-up Internet access. I am pleased to see service providers like Phone.com offering HD capability with their new hosted Business Phone service.”

Phone.com Chooses Polycom
This option is definitely for early technology adopters who want a cutting-edge office space with all the bells and whistles. Phone.com customers who purchase an HD-enabled phone can only communicate in HD with other customers who have an HD phone. In other words, both parties will need to have an HD phone set in order to take advantage of the higher voice quality.

“There is no reason to keep voice phone conversations behind and as HD phones and networks evolve everyone should be able to enjoy clear ‘CD like quality’ voice,” adds Rabban. “This is not an overnight process and the use of HD voice is still limited but we encourage other service providers to support the service and help speed up the transition.”

Phone.com will be offering Polycom SoundStation IP conference phones and Polycom SoundPoint IP desktop phones as part of its HD service. The Polycom phones feature Polycom HD Voice, which offers more than twice the clarity of ordinary phones for more natural, lifelike conversations.

“After extensive testing we chose the new Polycom HD business phones as the phone of choice on our Business Phone service and we will be expanding our selection in the next few months,” Rabban says. “Polycom is a true leader in the space.”

Phones of the Future
Expanding on the relationship between Phone.com and Polycom, Jeffrey Rodman, co-founder of Polycom and CTO of its Voice Division, also looks to the future.

“We’re delighted that an innovative company like Phone.com now supports Polycom HD Voice across its network,” Rodman says. “The market is moving to HD Voice as part of the natural evolution of the industry, and the benefits are obvious, especially once you hear the lifelike sound quality.”

Jon Arnold, Principal of analyst consultancy J Arnold & Associates, likes the announcement for both Polycom and Phone.com

“Being an early adopter, Phone.com is using HD voice as a differentiator, and showing the market that even small businesses can benefit from this great technology,” Arnold says. “For Polycom, Phone.com offers a unique entree to a large market that has significant upside once they discover how good HD really is.”

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“We are honored to be selected for the MountainWest Capital Network’s Utah 100, it shows their appreciation of our continued rapid growth!” says Bill Grodnik, CEO of Davinci Virtual.  “We are now available in over 600 locations, so whether you need a virtual office in Atlanta or a virtual office in Chicago, Davinci Virtual can help you.”

What did Davinci do to get on this prestigious list? Only stand out from among hundreds of other companies that applied.

Davinci may not be one of the 100 fastest growing companies in Utah – it’s competing with many fast-growth biomedical, biotechnical and healthcare in the region – but it is among the Emerging Elite. And it’s most certainly the largest virtual office space provider in Utah. The Emerging Elite are selected from among companies with less than five, but more than two, years of operation that show significant promise for future success.

“Even in the current challenging economic environment our unique virtual office services remain in high demand,” Grodnick says, “especially when small business owners are looking for a virtual office in New York or a virtual office in Los Angeles.”

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DavinciVirtual.com greets you with a talking video and the expression, “First Impressions Count.” How true that is – and the site makes a strong first impression, with a clean design, an appealing color scheme, a step-by-step guide for shopping and purchasing turnkey virtual office space and products online and provisioning and personalizing all services instantly.

“We are very excited to publish the next version of our virtual offices Web site – the user-friendly design will allow for even easier navigation while offering advanced search tools and new interactive features,” says Bill Grodnik, president and CEO of Davinci Virtual. “The new Web site provides a much better user experience and projects our updated company look and feel including a new logo design. We are convinced that the new site will yield higher, better visitor stats and conversion rates – stay tuned.”

I agree with Bill. DavinciVirtual.com’s new design allows users to select toll-free or local numbers worldwide, set up voicemail, fax and e-mail services, establish voice and video conferencing as well as professional live receptionist and live answering services. The site also offers visitors access to over 600 locations with virtual offices to choose from, including New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Miami and any other metropolitan area throughout the world. Clients can select prime business addresses, meeting space and business support services online.

One of my favorite parts is the “Davinci in the News” section. There the company displays many of the major media outlets in which the company has been featured. (Hint, hint Bill: You left out aBetterOffice.com). The ‘in the news’ section helps Davinci establish credibility almost immediately. The testimonials section is also helpful. And the ability to chat with a representative right away could mean the difference between closing a deal and losing one. Big improvement over version 2.0. My kudos to Davinci Virtual.

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