Reasons shared office is better alternative for modern businesses

In the ever-changing and competitive global marketplace, time, money and effort are the three major components in driving businesses. Shared office, which is a flexible, cost-effective and a convenient alternative to the conventional office, represents a way to optimize all these three elements simultaneously. A shared office is a fitted and furnished office space in a professional business environment, ready for immediate occupation. It provides the flexibility that businesses need to adapt quickly to rapidly changing market conditions. It is usually short-term and can be as short as one month.

It is an ideal working space for companies of all sizes and natures as the responsibility of maintaining the office premise and providing a range of business services, including reception and telephone answering services, secretarial support, conference and meeting facilities, high speed internet access and  are usually located in business districts of large cities.

However, modern businesses are increasingly going for shared office. The reasons, according to Premier Office Nigeria, a leading SME private office solution company, are:

Cost saving            

The key feature of the serviced office is that it provides significant cost savings. By doing away with initial set-up costs and hidden charges inherent in conventional leases, savings up to 75 percent of monthly costs can be achieved. Moreover, facilities such as break-out areas, meeting rooms and video conferencing system are also available to businesses without additional investment, resulting in substantial savings and reduced upfront costs.

Flexibility

Another important feature of the serviced office is its ultimate flexibility as compared to conventional offices. Serviced offices can be available from one month to one year and usually have renewable agreements. Such short term lease agreement is beneficial in particular to start-ups usually with unstable cash flow, or even large-scale companies looking to expand and “test the waters” in new markets. Office space and layout can be customized, and readily scalable, allowing businesses to upsize or downsize to fit their latest business requirements.

Efficiency

At the serviced office center, infrequently used space, such as the pantry, conference and meeting rooms are available for use. Compared to conventional office space, it is far more efficient than owning the meeting room and office facilities which are only needed for a few hours per week but companies are charged with rents and utilities even it is unoccupied for most of the time.

A professionally trained service team is also in place to provide all the basic office services to keep the businesses’ workspace running, such as reception services, secretarial support, cleaning and security. Not only do businesses gain significant savings from overheads, but valuable management time savings from handling associated staff recruitment and retention issues.

 Reduced risk

By using serviced offices, businesses are not obliged to hold the substantial amount of fixed assets associated with owning an office, enabling them to change the size of their office rapidly according to the business growth rate. With IT infrastructure, telecommunications system, office equipment and day-to-day administrative functions centrally managed by the serviced office provider, all the concerned operational risks are therefore considerably reduced. Such agility may make all the difference between success and failure.

OBINNA EMELIKE