Virtual offices - a waste of time.

Smoke and mirrors, anyone ?

If you've been in IT for any length of time, you'll know that the industry is plagued by "smoke and mirrors". Before you embark on any expensive development project, it helps to do full due diligence on your potential service provider to see who they are, what their customers think of them - and - where they are.

And this leads me on to "virtual offices".

Doing a search for IT providers on Google will reveal any number of development companies in, say, London. You'd get the impression that the IT industry is thriving, with hundreds of potential suppliers. If you look on Google Maps, there will be pins everywhere. Take your pick.

Digging a little deeper

However. When you choose a provider right next to you and actually call them, you may notice an Indian, Eastern European or other foreign accent.

Because. That's actually where your "local provider" is.

For a few pounds a month, overseas companies can rent a "virtual office" here in prestigious locations in the UK. There's a whole business which has sprung up to cater for this - ￡20 or so gets you a phone line at what is effectively the modern equivalent of a post box address. Pay a few pounds more every month, you can even have your company name on a name plate. But. You don't have to be there.

When you've booked your virtual office, you merely inform Google that you've got a new corporate office. Can you have a map pin, please ? Google ask building management to confirm you're at that address. They're quite happy to do so. And, of course, collect your monthly fee.

Congratulations. You have a map pin in a UK city. And you can put location specific landing pages on your website, so anyone in Edinburgh searching for "software developers Edinburgh" sees your name on a search engine.

What is wrong with this picture ?

Well, simply put..... there's your map pin. Congratulations. Zoom in, there's another 200 map pins near it, with everyone and their dogs doing the same thing. You have disappeared amidst the mass of other virtual office renters.

If you do actually generate a phone call from a client..... at some point, they just might find out that no, you can't have a meeting in the office with them as you're in Allahabad. Or Tashkent. Or wherever. All those pictures of your staff on the website are ones of people who don't exist, or have left - all can be traced on Linkedin.

So the deception works up until the point that someone actually phones you.

Why bother ? Idiocy. Spend your budget elsewhere.