Serviced Offices
If companies wish to take a step up from a ‘virtual office’, a full serviced office package can be taken. This is the nearest thing a company can get to renting and maintaining its own offices in the standard – and ever more costly – manner, with the advantage of course of a great reduction in expense. In addition to the facilities provided by a virtual office, with a serviced office companies have the option of using rooms for meetings and conferences at one or more locations.
Room Options
Serviced office packages can be taken as stand-alone packages or can be taken in conjunction with answer services, mailing addresses or a full virtual office service.
Packages can run from the renting of a single room for a short time period such as a morning or afternoon to the renting of a full suite of rooms for an extended period. Depending on the size and facilities of the office complex in which the rooms are being rented, a variety of rooms are usually available. While smaller offices may have just a few simple meeting and interview rooms available, more elaborate complexes may have fully appointed executive rooms for board-style meetings and also rooms specially suited for presentations to large numbers of people. All of these options will usually come with a professional reception service.
Food And Drink
Additional facilities are also usually available when renting serviced offices. Tea, coffee and light refreshments often come as standard, with the option of the provision of food ranging from sandwiches and snacks up to full meals with a number of courses: the latter is especially common in hotels that hire out suites of rooms for use by other companies.
Office Supplies
Office supplies are also often available for an additional cost, ranging from pens, paper and flip-charts to other more specialised and personalised documents such as presentation packs for distribution to attendees or conference delegates. This is especially useful for companies that have a limited ability to produce these specialised documents for themselves: it may be costly to include this service, but it could be even more costly to invest in the facilities necessary to produce the documents independently.
Information Technology
Given the ubiquity of information technology in modern offices, it is no surprise that many companies offering serviced office suites now make a full range of IT services available to clients. Laptops, projectors and other presentational devices are commonly available, while it is increasingly usual for IT services such as printing and even the temporary use of webspace and e-mail addresses to be on offer. In this way it is starting to become possible for very small businesses or even private individuals to be able to offer a fully resourced office experience when meeting clients.