Telepresence - Virtual PBX Survey Indicates SMBs Realize Cost Savings through Virtual Offices

By Arvind Arora, TMCnet Contributor

Virtual PBX, a provider of hosted phone and private branch exchange or PBX (News - Alert) services that enable enterprises to enhance the capabilities of their business telephony solutions at lower costs, has announced the findings of a recent study that shows how the owners and employees of small and medium-sized businesses or SMBs benefit from virtual offices.


The products offered by Virtual PBX include a range of solutions such as comprehensive set-ups including dial tone and VoIP phone, automated call answering and routing solutions that work with the existing land line, cell phone or VoIP phone of its customers.

Instead of buying and maintaining their own PBX hardware, customers of Virtual PBX can leverage its advanced features and responsiveness to concentrate upon serving their clients. The company also provides a backup phone service that helps the customers in continuing the business activities even during a disaster.

Over 600 representatives from SMBs participated within the survey; and comprised of chief executive officers, owners, partners, principals, directors and sales managers. They offered their insight about a number of topics such as frequency of virtual office use, perceived effectiveness in a virtual setting, virtual office costs and adoption of new technology within virtual business endeavors.

It was found in the study that enterprises expressed a number of reasons for the adoption of virtual offices. Sixty-one percent of the respondents cited employee flexibility, 54 percent citeed cost savings, while 42 percent said geographic distance of staff was the main reason for them to adopt virtual offices. Forty-one percent of them expressed that the desire to reduce commute time, cost and pollution compelled them to do the same.

The virtual workers who participated in the survey included a number of people who worked from home offices, coffee shops and other non-traditional locales as well.

Within the survey, it was found that over 60 percent of respondents work from a virtual office almost all the time, while 27 percent among them work outside the office for around two to 10 days every month. A considerable workforce of around 57 percent of the participants leverages a virtual office during any month, while approximately 59 percent respondents indicated that they are able to work from a virtual location in much more effective way in comparison to a traditional office.

Adoption of virtual offices also helps enterprises in realizing overall cost savings, and 43 percent of the SMB firms participating in the survey have said that they were able to save at least $1,000 every month in terms of rent, IT equipment, phone service and supplies. Eight percent of them have expressed they have saved more than $10,000 a month due to virtual offices.

In February 2011, Virtual PBX announced Virtual PBX Complete, tailored for companies who occasionally find themselves in a quandary. The product was billed as “everything a business needs to provide professional phone support for its customers, prospects and employees while eliminating the need to buy dial-tone service and other expensive options from traditional service providers.”