It is now time for businesses to increasingly use the internet as a virtual office, improving their productivity across the board. The use of the online and improved phone services have already revolutionized how businesses are conducted in the nation.
According to former secretary Muhammad Fazlur Rahman, “with a virtual office, you’ll be able to get rid of the exorbitant cost of your rented space and use your house as your office.”
“Many senior executives of global corporations no longer physically visit their offices. While many others go to and from work every day, spending too much time in traffic, they work while seated at home, he continued.
A virtual office can assist a business in significantly reducing the amount of money it spends each month on employee transportation in light of the rising cost of fuel. In addition, experts claim, “the virtual office will enable its personnel to avoid the regular traffic congestion on city streets. People who are sick of being stuck in traffic jams for hours on end every day would like to work in such offices.
Other benefits of virtual offices were described by Barrister Ahsan Habib as follows: “You’ve found, for example, a specialist you want to recruit for your office, but he lives in the UK and you’re in Dhaka. A virtual office can assist in making such a remote participant a part of your company. The internet can help with this. You need his service more than his physical presence.
The British barrister Barrister Habib, who recently visited Dhaka, remarked, “A newspaper reporter was my neighbor in East London.
Never once have I seen him in the office. How come a journalist never goes to the office? I questioned him one day. We don’t need to go to the office because we work online, he continued. That’s it. My supervisor assigns over the internet, and I file my stories in the same manner.
Working from home is gradually becoming the norm, particularly in the US and Europe. According to a writer in a Russian journal, this new trend is known as “telework,” which refers to working away from one’s traditional job while being in continual contact with it via contemporary information, hi-tech, and communications gear.
According to him, the number of “teleworkers” is increasing by 20 to 30 percent annually throughout the world. For instance, he claims that nearly one-third of Finland’s employable, physically fit population is employed remotely.
The Confederation of Netherlands Industry and Employers requested in a letter to their government in 2007 that “home employees” receive a bonus for preventing traffic jams. The organization actually desired that “home employees” receive compensation for expenses associated with working from home, such as lighting, energy, and the cost of establishing an office at their residences. The Confederation claims that this will ease traffic congestion and encourage economic expansion.
Telework has the potential to significantly alter Bangladesh. The businesses in this area, especially the smaller ones that lack the financial means to pay the skyrocketing office rents in big cities, might ask their knowledgeable staff members, for whom physical presence is unimportant, to work remotely.
In one way or another, the virtual office system is already present in Bangladesh. Numerous small business owners in the nation conduct their operations online. Consider SM Farhad Ullah, a retailer of clothing accessories in Chittagong, a port city.
Without an office, Farhad Ullah does his business with the aid of his assistants. “This is my fledgling business… At home, I have a fax machine, one laptop, and several telephones. I am doing well. Things are simpler thanks to technology. We must benefit from that,” he stated.
According to experts, all that is required for a successful virtual office is to offer real professionals dependable infrastructure, efficient network access, a competent phone system, technical support, and a well-thought-out action plan.
There are disadvantages to virtual offices in addition to their advantages. “Many unskilled and semiskilled workers may lose their jobs as the virtual office becomes more and more prevalent. The ‘teleworkers’ or ‘home workers’ may also find it boring to spend the entire day at home. The lack of face-to-face communication can also lead to misunderstandings and confusion with management, according to Barrister Habib.
In any case, he continued, “the advantages of a virtual office outweigh its disadvantages, and we need to promote it since it will assist manage time and space very effectively.”
