“Going Global” on a Shoestring Budget
The last couple of posts I’ve shared a few discoveries and ideas on how Software as a Service and in particular some of the services already available online could be used to set up a very low cost start-up business. This week I’ve been looking into how to take this idea further by using the same sorts of technologies to set up a point of presence in a country without actually being there.
As it turns out, for a few hundred dollars put down online via a credit card you can have a virtual office set up in a lot of cities where you might want to be, or at least give the impression you have a local presence. In my case I thought that with some upcoming business in that part of the world and with its de-facto “regional hub” status Singapore would be a good candidate.
A simple Google search reveals that there are a number of service office companies operating in Singapore. They offer a range of services – from office space and meeting rooms with secretarial services at the top end through to a so called virtual office with mail forwarding only for a few hundred Singapore dollars per year.
In fact most of these companies can provide pretty much everything you need for a basic “virtual office” including mail forwarding, a physical address you can use on business cards right up to IP based telephone or telephone answering and forwarding services. For those of us on a shoestring budget we need to be a little more devious however and pick and choose the bits from several providers to get the lowest/best value for money.
In my case I found the wining combination was in fact to use a 3rd party IP telephony provider such as mydivert who was able to provide a local Singapore telephone number for a few Euro per month. If you’re a bit more adventurous you can connect this to a low cost IP based telephone (such as the Linksys SPA901 pictured) and plug into an internet connection or even use software phones like x-lite which is a free download and runs on your PC or Mac.
If not you can just forward any calls to your local Singapore number through to a number in your home country or even just turn on the message service and get emailed any messages left by customers. MyDivert is just one of many providers and can be up and running within a few hours if you pay online with a credit card. You can also use the number to make calls to the country of choice as well as receive them avoiding local telephone toll charges.
Once you have a phone up and running in your newly added office in the country of your choice, you can subscribe online with a local virtual office provider to obtain a physical address with mail forwarding. It should be noted however, that if you actually plan to conduct business locally you may also need to register your company locally. If you are just providing a local point of contact though this is not usually a problem.
Once this is done all you need to do is have a few business cards and updated letterhead printed if you intend to do the occasional trip there. This can take a bit longer, but once again you can probably save a lot of money by outsourcing to the design and print work overseas. In the case of New Zealand, our experience has been that this is both cheaper and faster as well as having fewer mistakes than even using local design and print companies which is a bit sad.
For design work, assuming you are bit more hands on you can try elance and for printing I have had a good experience (although the paper weight is a little thinner for the finished product) with Print100 based in Hong Kong. They can courier world wide or deliver to your hotel – unless you are quite familiar with Hong Kong or speak Cantonese I would suggest pickup in person may be a bit challenging.
Asia, Business, Outsourcing, SaaS | seand | 
November 28, 2009 1:20 pm
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