Executive Summary

With today's economic challenges, most businesses are cutting costs- both variable and fixed costs. In many cases they want to expand their geographical footprint, increase their customer base, or simply maintain the same level of service their customers are used to. In a business world of ever increasing regulation and rising service and HR costs, this sounds impossible, right? As a CEO, CFO, or Accounting or AR department manager, you are responsible for growing the company, hiring and training additional employees to accommodate this growth and, of course, do this while holding the bottom line to stay competitive in the market place. The pressure seems to come from everywhere and your staff feels it too. How can you balance the needs of cutting costs, while at the same time hiring additional workers to make the expanding business successful? We believe that to do this, companies should invest in a virtual staff strategy. So do a number of highly respected consulting companies who define a virtual workforce or staff as:

A group of employees who do not work in a corporate headquarters. These workers could include mobile workers, telecommuters, branch office employees, business partners, contractors, outsourcers, and others types of workers who do not come into an office on a regular basis.

To understand the growing trends around virtual staff strategies, Innovative RMR Solutions and its strategic partners decided to attend expos and conferences and held one on one interviews with CEOs CFOs and Accounting and AR managers in the Electronic Security, Pest Control, Waste Management and Propane industries. Since we have clients in each of these industries, we were able to get solid, first hand information to better serve them and to help us to improve our strategies.

We found many commonalities:

• These industries are all subscriber and service based
• Companies in all of these industries depend on Recurring Monthly Revenue (both current and new) and competition is fierce.
• Companies in these markets are actively seeking to expand the business while at the same time improving their customer service practices and cutting costs where possible.

This makes a great case for virtual staff solutions.

Virtual Staff Solutions bring many benefits to any RMR type business such as:

• Reduced print/mail and supply costs by a minimum of usually 25% with most saving more.
• Improved worker productivity
• Help to meet business objectives
• Improve customer service
• Less costly business expansion

Virtual workforces bring many benefits to the business such as reduced facility and variable costs, as well as improved worker productivity, which are top priorities for more than three-fourths of the organization we spoke to.

Organizations Must Cut Costs - But Not At The Expense Of Growing The Business

Table 1: In the Current Economy, Lowering Costs Is a Top Priority

Given the current economy, how important are the following priorities for your business over the next six months?
Results as a percentage of all participating companies

• Improving customer service will be a key priority for the next 18 months and beyond. In ordinary recessions, organizations are forced to cut costs wherever possible. However, in today's economy, simple cost cutting won't do. Why? Because organizations must look to the future now and be competitive today. This means balancing simple cost cutting with strategic spending. Therefore, now is the best time to kick customer service organizations into high gear. Why? Because customers remember how you treated them in the tough times. Because of this, it is not surprising that, looking forward, more than 85% of companies named improving customer service as a top priority. Remember, in this economy, it is more affordable to keep an existing customer happy than to acquire a new customer.
• Yet focus on expanding the business cannot be overlooked. Today's companies are looking beyond the here and now. They are looking at opening more branch offices, working on mergers and/or acquisitions, and using customer service contacts to upsell more products and services and get referrals.

Companies Will Recruit, Develop, And Retain Talent To Meet Their Growth Objectives

With business expansion driving many of the critical decisions being made over the next year, companies will need to tap into their human resources department for help. Why? Because building up an employee base to tackle this new growth will be the key to the business success. This puts pressure on HR departments to meet these new business requirements by attracting and retaining top people. H.R. personnel will:

• Focus on attracting top talent . . . In times of a struggling economy, companies can be much more selective in who they choose to attract and retain. And in doing so, companies tell us that they are open to a much more diverse set of workers than may have been utilized in the past: remote, part-time, and outsourced workers.
• . . . while simultaneously trying to lower the costs of recruiting. With all of the hiring that must occur as the economy recovers, HR professionals must find ways to cut costs associated with recruitment. Some potential ways this cost cutting can occur is through the hiring of outsourced workers. They also eliminate the costs of benefits, taxes, worker compensation, etc.

Table 2: Worker Retention And Satisfaction Will Drive HR Decisions

"To the best of your knowledge, how important are the following priorities for your human resource (HR) department over the next 12 to 18 months?"

To meet this worker recruiting and retaining need, many organizations are looking to enable more effective virtual workforce programs. Not only does a virtual workforce promote a better work environment for employees, but it also benefits the business as well.

Virtual Workforces: The Key To Cost-Effectively Growing Company Talent

Virtual Workforces Promise To Solve Top Business And HR Objectives ... and can do a lot more than support the business's changing worker population; they can also help companies meet their overall business objectives, such as expanding the business, and HR objectives, such as improving satisfaction. Virtual workforces allow companies to:

• Reduce facility and travel costs.
• Improve worker productivity and customer service.
• Improve employee satisfaction and work/life balance.
• Solve the top HR priority - worker retention.

Table 3: Improving Worker Productivity And Customer Service Drive Business Interest In Virtual Workforces

"Of the following, what are your business interests in moving toward a virtual workforce?"

Table 4: Worker Retention Drives HR Interest In Virtual Workforces

"Of the following, what are your human resources interests in moving toward a virtual workforce?"

IT Departments Are Critical In Executing A Virtual Workforce Strategy

To meet the business objectives that today's organizations demand, such as lowering the cost of facilities or expanding the business quickly, IT must step in. IT is the critical lynchpin that can create and support a virtual workforce strategy that will enable organizations to see the cost cutting and expansion they need.

Critical to the support of "anytime, anywhere" workers. Eighty percent of our respondents told us that providing anytime, anywhere support to workers was very important to their IT departments. Furthermore, more than 85% of respondents believe that providing workers with access to their applications and data, regardless of their location, are other important hot buttons for IT departments.

... Supported By Traditional Infrastructure

Networking infrastructure. When supporting a virtual workforce, there are three key technology components that deliver a productivity environment to users: 1) the virtualization technologies (usually housed in the data center); 2) the end user device; and 3) the networking infrastructure that connects it all together. Using technologies such as WAN optimization and VPNs, organizations can provide workers with a quality connection and experience when connecting remotely to company resources, while at the same time assuring that all connections to desktops, applications, and data are secure - solving top IT concerns from our respondents.

While all of these virtualization technologies and traditional infrastructure have their place in supporting a virtual workforce, it is important to note that each of these solutions puts more control back in the hands of IT and helps them meet business objectives.

Take A Three-Step Approach To Make A Virtual Workforce A Reality

Creating and supporting a virtual workforce is not easy, yet we know it will be key in helping organizations meet their objectives in areas such as lowering costs, improving customer service and expanding the business. Thankfully, IT now has the tools at its disposal to implement a secure and compliant virtual workforce. This means that IT is no longer the inhibitor to business success, but instead, it can align with business needs in a cost-effective manner. To get this right, we recommend that companies focus on three key initiatives.

Step One: Make The Business Case For A Virtual Workforce Program

Growing the business is no easy task - especially when you consider all of the costs associated with doing so, namely the new facilities and IT infrastructure that will be required as well as the recruiting costs for the new workforce that will be needed. Additionally, improving customer service in many cases means putting employees where your customers are - so, again, new offices means more expenses.

These real-life problems are great starting-off points for building your business case for a virtual workforce. Consider the cost savings of hiring virtual employees for your newly targeted areas at a flexible location instead of a headquarters office.

Consider the revenue opportunities of keeping your employees near your customers without the high costs of operating a full IT infrastructure in your branch office. Alternatively, think about the increased recruiting base your HR team would have if location didn't matter - if hiring the most qualified worker meant just that, and not just the most qualified worker in a specific city. All of these criteria should be considered when justifying your virtual workforce program.

Step Two: Start With A Small Departmental Or Location-Based Pilot

Next comes the thought exercise: Where will a virtual workforce fit well in your organization? Is there a department or business function that has more needs than another? Is there a branch office that is not filled to capacity that could be closed if employees worked from a virtual location? Would outsourcing print and mailing of invoices free up staff to perform more critical or growth oriented tasks? Would you like to make welcome or customer service calls to newly acquired customers in the sweet spot hours without tying up staff?

Regardless of your scenario, find the group (or groups) that you feel would most benefit from going virtual and set up shop.

Step Three: Demonstrate Benefits To Expand Your Virtual Workforce

With your small pilots in place, it's now time to take a step back to see where your cost savings existed. Where did this test group face challenges, and where were the benefits? Make sure that current objectives are being met with the program, such as faster growth opportunities, serving more customers at a lower cost, and improved worker satisfaction and retention. Work through any potential concerns they raise and extend the pilot to new groups with different demands. You will find that in no time, your virtual workforce - supported by client virtualization technologies - will enable your business to meet your objectives: cutting costs, but not at the expense of growing the business.