Virtual Businesses Succeeding Online
by Dave Murphy
ISSN 1535-3613

As some companies downsize and look toward outsourcing as the low-cost alternative to maintaining staff members, a new kind of business network has emerged. It's one in that consists of small businesses helping one another for mutual benefit. Many of these businesses are home-based and have only one or a handful of employees.

By using the Internet to connect home-based workers, a small entrepreneurial company can play fast and loose with the traditional rules of commerce. Without the standard trappings of a commercial office space, these business owners are also looking for new ways to make business happen.

According to research from International Data Corp., there were over 15 million corporate home-based offices in America in 1996, and about 30 million households had an office in the home. Home-based businesses are nothing new. What's new is the way the virtual businesses are banding together for short and long-term projects.

It's imperative that [business owners] keep abreast of technology. We don't have to know how to perform all our company's computer operations, but we do have to know the value of those operations to our bottom line.

I contend that fully half of small professional service businesses will be virtual within 10 years, and will also have a new approach toward conducting business. There's no reason for a graphic design consulting firm or a legal office to maintain brick and mortar facilities. When I buy design services or meet with our corporate lawyers, it's usually in my office or over lunch. And, even more to the point, I require my vendors to have at least one email address and to check their mail at least twice a day. I want to use technology to form a partnership with my vendors the same way Damar Group partners with other technology companies on joint projects.

Away from the hype and noise of the USENET newsgroups and pyramid scheme email marketers, real businesses partnerships are taking shape through the availability of cheap, easily-learned technology.

While speaking to a chamber of commerce lunch event, I described the role of new partnerships and strategic alliances in the coming years. It's imperative that businesses use technology such as virtual private networks and encrypted file exchanges to work together for mutual gain. We must embrace our competitors and join together or we're both going to be beat up in the long run.

Some of my articles on virtual business which were originally published by The Business Monthly are republished online:
Virtual business - what will it mean for me?
Creating a virtual office
The virtual office - is it for you?

What are your thoughts on virtual offices and virtual business partnerships? Leave your comments at the DGL Message Center.

Damar Group, Ltd. helps business use technology.

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updated March 12, 1998
http://dgl.com/dglinfo/1998/dg980312a.html

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