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Leamington PA Goes Virtual Coventry Telegraph, 13 January 2009, Leamington Times, 17 December 2008  From Kenilworth to Kenya, setting up as a virtual business helps Leamington company to service clients across the globe.Anna Isaacs, a PA with more than 20 years' experience, founded Office Lifeline in 2007. Using the latest internet technology, she can carry out the role as PA to clients around the world at the same time - all from the comfort of her office. The business, which is about to celebrate its second birthday, is entirely virtual from faxing and texting to filing and telephones. Anna and her team look after a wide-range of clients from the Midlands and the South East to as far away as Kenya and Monte Carlo, by providing them with virtual PA and office support. Office Lifeline can be managed from virtually anywhere and, because of this, its four associate PA and typists are able to work from their homes in Rugby, Warwick, Stratford and as far away as Canada. The business was helped by the National B2B Centre at the University of Warwick with the design of its website, and was advised on suitable technology including VHQ Web Office, Voice over IP telephony and Microsoft Groove. The software allows it to provide all the services of a normal PA, such as handling calls, monitoring emails, managing diaries and typing-up documents, together with secure file sharing, all in a virtual office. Anna said: 'I realised that there were lots of companies out there that would benefit from my experience and expertise as a PA. 'The issue was that those organisations didn't need my help full-time, but a flexible ad hoc service provider became a much more attractive proposition. 'The beauty of the virtual model that I have now set-up, is that I can call on just the right skills from my team, at the right time to meet the needs of my clients. 'Both my team and my clients can all access Office Lifeline systems at anytime using the internet, which is how I work with a PA in Canada - if a client comes to us at the end of the day with a document to be typed, the seven hour time difference means that she'll type it up while we're all asleep and have it done for the client first thing in the morning! 'Using Groove and our Web Office to store all of the files makes it very easy for us to exchange large files and share documents, as well as reducing the amount of paper we use which makes us more environmentally friendly.' James Pennington, of the National B2B Centre, said: 'Becoming a virtual organisation is an attractive idea for many companies because of the potential to reduce office costs and increase business flexibility. 'Office Lifeline is a prime example of how using collaboration technology can be used by SMEs to benefit both the business and its clients.' The National B2B Centre is part of WMG at the University of Warwick and funded by the European Regional Development Fund, Advantage West Midlands and the West Midlands Mobile and Wireless project. << More News |
