The evolution of virtual business is a practical phenomenon that has a history that actually precedes the internet and modern communications. For example, P&G has long been largely a marketing company that outsources almost everything except their product development and branding expertise. The best-known contemporary example of this is Dell, which is basically a call center behind a web-site; when a salesperson takes your order, the working bit of it goes straight to a non-Dell vendor – the manufacturer – who makes it, packages it and ships it directly to you.
More recently, the outsourcing boom produced vendors offering everything but “core” services – some small, privately owned companies even outsource themselves to employment agencies, then hire themselves back as employees, so the agency can deal with payroll, benefits, and employment law issues, and the owners can focus undistracted on the business.
Now, when you add in to the mix communications technology that allows you to make phone calls to your customers over the internet, update your blog, check orders with vendors, and coordinate with employees or collaborate with partners – all from your handheld PDA at a Starbucks with a WiFi connection – the only real reason you need an address is for the WHOIS database when you set up your website.
As a result, everyone from a consultant to an inventor, or a marketer to a publisher, can put up a website, and, literally, run a business from airports, cafes, shopping centers – even entire wired cities – while touring the world without anyone realizing the business-owner is anywhere else but in a humming office building. Furthermore, this frees up the business to be where it needs to be at any given time for inspiration, market research, or contract fulfillment, without causing other aspects of the business to suffer from lack of attention.
Isn’t that what you do? You will be, to one degree or another, soon enough.
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