e-Writing
from the desk of Elsie Lee, ELIX Virtual Management

Virtual Assistants at Your Service

By Elsie Lee
Thursday, February 28, 2002

Virtual Assistants working from home are helping businesses of every size manage growth and change.

Benefits for small businesses:

• Save cost
• Tap the expertise of VA
• More time left for core functions
• Commitment to quality
  

The convergence of the communications and computing industries leading to rapid breakthrough in interactive telecommunication services has made the world smaller and more accessible. We are witnessing a rapidly changing face of the workplace – downsizing, automation, teleworkers, virtual offices, increased small business startups. Self-employed Virtual assistants (VAs), off-site administrative and similar professionals are assisting businesses of every size in meeting the challenges and needs that accompany these changes. The Internet has opened up many business options that were almost unimaginable only a few years ago.  

A VA is an independent contractor, usually working from a fully equipped home, who provides management or administrative support services for networked start-ups and small office/home office (SOHO) entrepreneurs via the Internet. It's a growing opportunity base for people who want to work from home, and for entrepreneurs who need assistance in order to continue working from home, without opening an office or hiring employees.

VA ensures that any entrepreneur has access to all of the support benefits enjoyed by any company that employs permanent staff. Work assignments are communicated through email, phone, fax, mail, diskette transfer and real-time online messaging. The services offered by VAs vary from one individual to another, based on their area of expertise. In addition to administrative support, many VAs offer other, more-specialized skills, running from the gamut of website maintenance to “virtual foreign offices” for companies seeking to go international.

VAs are very often people described as self-starters, creative, trustworthy, adaptable to rapid change, excellent at problem solving and great at setting goals and seeing them through to completion. They are highly skilled in their profession and able to have a powerful impact on the productivity and profitability of those they work with. Many of them are multi-skilled and multi-tasked, and they take on learning as a continuous process in life.

VA for Small Businesses

The benefits for small businesses are numerous. To name just a few,

• Save cost on extra office space, equipment, manpower and training – since a VA generally works from a fully equipped home-based office, the SOHO can ramp up its support backbone at no capital cost. The SOHO pays only for ‘time on task’ or by project basis.
• Tap the expertise of VA in areas beyond the SOHO’s scope of competence – it may be a specialist in computer technology but lacks the financial expertise in managing a business, therefore, a VA who has invaluable experience in financial management will be a great help to his/her business.
• More time left for core functions of a business – the running of a business encompasses a whole range of activities that include planning, marketing, financing, customers support and many other non-core chores that can consume a great proportion of the entrepreneur’s time. VA is an alternative and cost-effective solution to employing a permanent staff or the calling in of a temp. 
• Commitment to quality -- Unlike a temp, who works for an agency, the VA works for the business. VA has good bottom-line reasons to learn all about the business and deliver top-quality services. A VA is also a self-employed entrepreneur and can better understand the needs of the small business.
• The VA-SOHO relationship is a symbiotic one: the VA is the SOHO’s growth partner, with a vested interest in helping the small business flourish. (Only an employee with stock options can claim this powerful motivation).

In a highly competitive globalized business environment, businesses strive to become more profitable by becoming leaner and efficient, outsourcing will be the guiding mode of employment. For the HR Managers and companies, VA is an alternative solution to temps. When the workflow grows bigger than the staff, or during temporary crises, VAs can be called on to take tasks that can be performed virtually. Conversely, when the workflow has slowed to the point that the administrative staff is busy only intermittently and getting paid for ‘shuffling papers’, then the VA solution is a cost effective measure to meet changing needs. In some cases all support tasks may be handled virtually, leaving the core team to concentrate on what is really important: growing the business.

Advantages for Companies

• No employee-related benefits – companies save on insurance, bonuses, medical benefits and many other concerns that every HR manager is familiar with. VAs are responsible for their own training and upgrading of skills to add value to their services.
• No idle hours – VAs are paid for time on task only – not time spent shuffling papers or waiting for the next assignment or gossiping and other office politics.
• No equipment or space – VAs generally work from a fully-equipped home-based office, allowing the client to ramp up the support backbone for telecommuters at no capital cost.
• Commitment to Quality –  VAs are self-employed entrepreneurs and their livelihood depends directly on their client’s satisfaction derived from quality service delivery.
• Painless parting – If the VA is not a good fit, or her services are no longer required, the association can be terminated without the pains that accompany the termination of an employee. Companies save on retrenchment benefits when downsizing takes place. 

As more and more businesses are seeking for an international presence, VA can act as an "offshore" office for these. Clients can instantly acquire the benefits of an offshore office without the expense of setting up a physical office or employees.

Viable Career Option

Like any other professions, there are advantages and disadvantages of being a Virtual Assistant. Virtual assisting is not a first career option. Most VAs have gained a wealth of working knowledge and experience in the corporate world and they are abandoning the problems and politics of ‘brick-and-mortar’ corporate life in favour of working independently in their own SOHOs. Some are working mothers who want to spend more time with their families without having to sacrifice the income or put to waste the skills and expertise that they have acquired over the years. It is also an excellent career option for those who are physically impaired.

The advantages are many – shorter or no commuting, extra family time, comfortable clothes, away from office politics, personal and financial growth at their own pace. Being employed can be a blessing for people who want more guidance and structure, for people who like routine, or working in groups, for people who like supervision. The self-employed are the independent-minded, free to be as creative and innovative as they like, free to set their own schedules and workloads. The VA can enjoy and flourish in this freedom, choosing the clients they prefer to work with, choosing where to work, with whom, and how much they want to make while doing it. A VA’s income is determined directly by the quantity and quality of his/her work, and the skills s/he brings to the marketplace.

Having your own VA practice is an opportunity for personal growth, the chance to step out into an exciting new field and seize your future, move into “your own space” and decide entirely for yourself your identity and role in the professional world. Statistics from myriad sources on business trends indicate that the upsurge in home-based businesses seen in recent years will continue, and will likely accelerate in the years to come. Experts also predict that Internet use will double by the year 2001. Given these trends, it makes sense that there will be high demand for virtual support services to aid this new wave of Net-savvy small offices/home offices and other entrepreneurs in achieving success.

In the local context, as Singapore is progressing towards being a knowledge-based economy, a service which the government provides to promote technopreneurship is the Technopreneur Home Office Scheme which will facilitate the creation of high-technology and knowledge-intensive new businesses by allowing technology entrepreneurs (technopreneurs) use their residence as home offices. The demand for virtual support services will accelerate in years to come.

As this is an emerging industry, the community of virtual assistants is still small but is certainly growing, particularly in the United States. Staffcentrix.com, the company that pioneered the development of the VA industry is an organization that provides key support to people launching and growing their VA practices. Members of the community draw support from a network of about 200 members, located in various parts of the world, namely the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Malaysia, Japan, India, Channel Islands and France. Members communicate frequently to share their knowledge and experience, forging new and lasting friendship within regions and across borders.

This article was first published in Today's Manager, Feb/Mar 2000, an SIM publication.

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