The next generation of office space

by Catherine Woods - Wednesday, 26th March 2008 - (1) comment

Office space in train stations? New Zealand-born entrepreneur Hamish Edwards doesn’t think that’s such a crazy idea.

Edwards, who is expanding his accounting systems company Xero in the UK, says congestion and environmental concerns and a growing desire for flexible working mean virtual offices are becoming a viable alternative to real office space. “You don’t need to build a massive tower block. You don’t need to worry about travelling around. A laptop, blackberry and mobile phone is all you need to do business,” he says.

“I think you’re going to see a lot more businesses think of ways they can have their employees working from home all or part of the week.

“I think you might start to see a lot more railway stations put in meeting rooms where business people can come together."

Edwards is hoping to take advantage of a growing appetite for virtual offices through his company, Xero, which provides an online accounting system designed for small businesses and their advisers.

“You can connect to the system anywhere, any time,” he adds. “That links in to the concept of being able to work from anywhere if you need to.”

Picture source

WHAT NEXT?
Sign up for our newsletter and get our weekly pick of business news in your inbox!
Subscribe to our magazine for in depth interviews and advice from leading entrepreneurs!
Join our forum and talk business with other entrepreneurs!

1 Comments

March 26, 2008 5:29pm
Davina Jones Says:

We run our company from our homes, working from both the UK and the US. Our key to cohesiveness is our virtual phone system. We have a US 800 number provided by Gotvmail under which we all have extensions. To anyone calling us, it's as if we're in a single office, in the sasme country as our clientele.