What Is Virtual Office?
Before Covid-19 pandemic, not everyone is familiar with the term “virtual”, in fact sometimes some people even perceive the word to have a negative connotation.
Nowadays, as the situation requires us to keep physical and social distancing, all of a sudden everyone understands what “virtual” means because almost all of our activities are taking place in the virtual world, including virtual meetings, virtual religious activities, and even virtual concerts. Many entrepreneurs also increasingly use virtual office in lieu of conventional office.
A virtual office allows you to use a physical address and enjoy office-related services (including meeting room, lounge, secretarial services, internet access) without having to buy or rent any physical office space nor hire administrative staff. Virtual office users can work from anywhere using their laptop or mobile phone.
Virtual office was first commercially offered in 1994 by Ralph Gregory who founded Virtual Office Inc. in Colorado, USA. However, the term “virtual office” was found as early as in 1982 in the article by John Markoff who wrote, “In the future virtual office, workers will no longer be constrained by computer equipment or geographic location…. The office as we know it will cease to have the central importance it does today”. (Source: Wikipedia)
Virtual office in Indonesia started in the 90’s. The surge of investment at the time had caused significant increase in the demand for office space resulting in unprecedented surge of office rental rate. Companies had to look for alternatives and many switched to virtual office or serviced office as cheaper alternatives. Unlike virtual office, serviced office is fully furnished physical office that comes in different sizes to accommodate between one to twenty people or more.
The government of Indonesia permits start-up companies to use virtual office as they start their business with low budget, hoping that they will grow and contribute to the Indonesian economy. Nowadays, big cities like Jakarta have quite a few virtual office, serviced office and coworking space operators.
Before you decide which virtual office, serviced office or coworking space to choose, you must first check the status of the location. DKI Jakarta is divided into various zones and business license will only be issued if the office is located within business zone.
The above article is contributed by Amethyst Executive Suites, provider of Serviced Office, Coworking Space and Virtual Office with offices located at Sahid Sudirman Center, Jl. Sudirman (Central Jakarta CBD) and 18 Office Park, Jl. Simatupang (South Jakarta CBD). To find out more about our services and promotional offers, please visit www.amethystsuites.com or call +62 896 3694 1711 (Sahid Sudirman Center) or +62 896 3694 1722 (18 Office Park).
