Instant offices: Today's business solution

Instant offices: Today's business solution

B. Gunawan, Contributor, Jakarta

To an established company there is nothing extraordinary about
having a representative office that is strategically located and
equipped with sophisticated facilities.

But it is certainly a problem for a newly operating company
wishing to have both a solid organization and an office that is
not only equipped with modern facilities but also strategically
located.

Today this is no longer a problem, though. Several companies
offer instant offices of various types. You may opt for a virtual
office, which provides basic secretarial services, or a small
office measuring about 12 square meters (for one person only) or
even one with an area of some 40 square meters (for five people).

"Well, you can take your laptop computer to this office and do
your business," said Viera Djawahir, business development manager
of The Executive Center, a Jakarta-domiciled company providing
serviced offices, virtual offices, business bases and business
services

The Executive Center is only one of at least five similar
companies in Jakarta with affiliates in other major cities in the
world. Their presence in Indonesia means a solution to the
country's newly established companies starting with a small
business or to companies that require only a little office space.

These companies can also help foreign corporations wishing to
open their branch offices in Jakarta. These office lease
providers offer not only office space, like what a building
management of an office building does, but they also offer office
operational services.

In this regard, their services are like those provided by
business centers in five-star hotels. The advantage for the
clients is that they can get office space at a much lower rate
but enjoy equal luxury.

The office space they offer is always located in Jakarta's CDB
(central business district). The Executive Center, for example,
is located in Sudirman Square Tower, a modern tall building in
Jl. Sudirman, which is part of Jakarta's Golden Triangle area.
This company also has its network in most strategic sites in Hong
Kong, Bulgaria, Ho Chi Minh City, Shanghai, Singapore, Sydney,
Tokyo and Seoul.

The rate? For a virtual office service, the rate ranges from
Rp 500,000 to Rp 1 million a month. If you need an office space,
the rate ranges between Rp 7.5 million and Rp 15.5 million a
month.

As the rate is calculated in rupiah, it won't be quite so
burdensome to the lessees. Aside from enjoying basic facilities
like a fully furnished office, electricity, air conditioners,
telephone lines, a fax machine and a photocopier, a lessee will
also be provided with a receptionist, an office boy that will be
ready to serve refreshments and an around-the-clock security
system. Then there is a lobby where guests are received and a
meeting room for internal meetings or meetings with clients.

As modern offices shrink in size and their organization is
trimmed, the concept of an office offered by serviced office
providers is in demand today, especially considering the fact
that the payment system is very flexible.

You can pay the rent monthly and you can also extend the
office lease as long as you wish. The Executive Center, Viera
said, always has a lot of prospective lessees. The company has 40
rooms on lease. They are fully booked almost the entire year.
Sometimes, some clients are willing to be put on the waiting
list.

The Executive Center has about 23 companies as its clients
today. These companies deal in, among other areas, management
consultancy, waste-treatment consultancy, public relations,
cosmetics or heavy-duty equipment. About 90 percent of them are
multi-national corporations and the remaining 10 percent are made
up of local companies.

Long before this particular service business became as popular
as it is now, Mee Kim, president of CEO Suite, said that her
company was the pioneer of this business in Jakarta. The company
began to offer the lease of instant offices with modern
facilities as far back as 1997.

Today CEO Suite has two buildings to lease, namely in Wisma
GKBI (Gabungan Koperasi Batik Indonesia) and BEJ (Bursa Efek
Jakarta) building in the Semanggi area, Jl. Sudirman, which is
known to be Jakarta's most prestigious area. The rent is
flexible, ranging from US$8 per hour to $700 to $5,000 per month.
"Our rent is highly customized: hourly, daily, monthly or yearly.
You name it, you get it," said Mee Kim, a Korean woman married to
an Indonesian.

Aside from providing a lessee with standard equipment and
facilities, CEO Suite also provides its clients with, among other
services, ISDN, LAN, unified messaging system, high-speed
Internet and teleconference facilities if the clients wish to
rent a conference room.

Besides, CEO Suite, whose motto is "You only pay for what you
use", also makes available supporting personnel such as
secretaries and accountants. "You can calculate yourself the
difference between taking our office lease and renting or
purchasing your own office building," said Mee Kim. CEO Suite,
she added, now boasts some 700 clients in Jakarta, Singapore,
Kuala Lumpur and Shanghai.

Today the concept of an instant office is the prevailing
trend. In a highly globalized era, information technology plays a
vital role and takes over the concept of conventional offices.
The concept of an instant office is also the prevailing trend in
the United States.

In the present digitalized era, a company no longer needs a
large space and a bulky organization. Bill Gates even started his
business in a small office, a trend that was later taken up by
other companies, particularly those in the information technology
business.

In Indonesia, the trend of an instant office has developed as
much as it has in more advanced countries. Mee Kim said, however,
that when companies trimmed down their businesses in search of a
higher efficiency level or when, from the very start, companies
were not designed to be large-scale businesses, the concept of a
small office or an instant office, or even a virtual office, was
an attractive choice.

She added that the demand for office space showed an increase
from one year to another, following the greater dynamism in
business and in the economy in general. Signs of this increase in
the demand for office space have become increasingly more visible
in Jakarta.

As a result, slowly but surely, the instant office business
has also shown a rise in demand and is growing at a rate of 10
to 15 percent annually.