No need to spend big bucks on setting up an expensive office with boardrooms and acres of real estate.
Actis Technologies, provider of virtual meeting solutions, has launched ‘virtual office solutions’ for corporate India that can be used by individuals and companies to do business from any remote location.
A virtual office is a combination of off-site live communication and address services. Actis’ Virtual Office Solutions include virtual meeting, virtual presentation, webinars, Intranet and skill mapping.
“It is a mix of various solutions and technologies. The benefit is that one can set up a virtual office and collaborate with others sitting in various locations globally,” Abhimanyu Gupta, Director, Actis Technologies told
He said the solution is different from video conferencing solutions such as telepresence, which requires lot of investment and high-end technology costing around Rs 1 crore for each room. In comparison, virtual solution would cost Rs 5,000 and Rs 25,000 per user.
“The major beneficiaries of this automated management technology are small and medium enterprises (SMEs), budding entrepreneurs and large corporations,” Gupta said.
Virtual Office would also help in reducing the travelling costs, and thereby carbon footprint, he said. It can also provide large corporations with flexi-working options for employees, helping reduce the attrition rate.
The company’s ecosystem partners include Microsoft, Cisco, Polycom, Avaya, Patton and Logitech, leaders in communication technologies.
Gupta said such solutions will increase in the future with a growing number of self-employed professionals and consultants who need to frequently communicate with partners around the world.
Though there is no specific study on this market, virtual office solutions are a multi-billion market globally and India would play a big role in the near future.
“Any company which is not dependent on any kind of face-to-face interaction with customers can benefit from such solutions. Going virtual is becoming cheaper as infrastructure is also improving. I do not think there is any serious bandwidth problem … these may well be some nitty-gritty issues,” Mahesh Uppal, Director, ComFirst India, said.