Reimagining the modern office
Running a business from home or from the local coffee shop might seem like a good way to save on office space until an important call with a client doesn’t go well. That call when the dogs won’t quit barking or the constant chatter of the coffee crowd is extra loud.
To preserve a professional image and access important services, small businesses and sole proprietors are turning to enterprising companies like myBusinessBar for an alternative arrangement.
myBusinessBar operates co-working space and executive offices to provide cost-conscious businesses with the full complement of office amenities and receptionist services in a shared office environment. Business professionals enjoy live phone answering services, mail handling/forwarding, on-demand meeting room space and drop-in workspace, and monthly on-site events, among other benefits, making it popular among entrepreneurs and agile businesses.
The company has become the go-to shared workspace in its community, but needed to find ways to maximize revenue and increase technology services it could offer its growing client base. To address these issues, myBusinessBar adopted Vaddio collaboration and conferencing solutions to stay ahead of the game and create new revenue opportunities for its growing business.
“Co-working centers are known for having advanced technologies to serve diverse business needs,” says Kathryn Christiansen, owner of myBusinessBar. “Vaddio group collaboration products make it easier for us to deliver the business-critical services today’s customers expect while helping us stand out from the crowd and capitalize on new business opportunities we didn’t have in the past.”
Reliable, affordable, and professional videoconferencing
One of the main draws to a shared work environment is the flexible access to essential services it provides for agile businesses. According to Christiansen, companies opt for shared workspace because they can simply pick and choose which resources they want to use and when.
Among the most popular resources for lean businesses are conferencing and collaboration services. Specifically, videoconferencing helps local professionals better communicate and collaborate with small groups of geographically dispersed partners, clients, and prospects. However, many became frustrated with the lack of readily available, modern, and affordable conferencing facilities in the area.
“Local conferencing services at a physical location had to be booked days or weeks in advance and required users on both ends of a session to have specific technology to make it work,” Christiansen says. “We chose to equip our conference room with Vaddio GroupSTATION to remove those barriers and make it easier for small groups of workers to collaborate when they need to using the tools they prefer.”
With Vaddio collaboration products, myBusinessBar tenants have access to a unified control pad to direct a high-definition pan/tilt/zoom web camera, loudspeakers, and high-fidelity microphones for a professional-grade meeting experience. Unlike the restrictive proprietary systems at other locations, myBusinessBar customers simply connect their laptop or tablet to the GroupSTATION control dock using a USB or HDMI connection. Now, meeting organizers can instantly launch their personalized meeting using productivity and conferencing applications such as: Microsoft PowerPoint, Google Hangout, WebEx, YouTube, Microsoft Lync, Skype, and many others.
Because myBusinessBar’s conference room doesn’t require special preparation or setup between meetings, customers no longer schedule extra time for setup. myBusinessBar customers can reserve the conference room through a real-time, online calendar and have instant confirmation of their meeting. Once they arrive at myBusinessBar, customers can immediately collaborate with partners, colleagues, and prospects around the world.
“Vaddio GroupSTATION is a turnkey solution that offers our customers the freedom to use their own software,” Christiansen says. “Because it works with any device and application, we can accommodate the needs of a much wider user base which is an essential component to our future growth.”
Improved client retention and increased revenue
In addition to simplifying the meeting experience for myBusinessBar’s current customers, Vaddio products help the company extract maximum value from its existing assets and create new streams of revenue to keep the company growing.
myBusinessBar’s clients come from various industries and sectors. They range from human resources managers interviewing candidates to attorneys conducting depositions, and every profession in between. Many clients already rely on video collaboration services like Skype for one-to-one online meetings, but need a higher-quality solution for group collaboration.
In the past, the myBusinessBar could not have capitalized on the needs for professional-grade group collaboration, because its conference room was equipped only for in-person group collaboration or teleconferencing. Since use of the room was built into the company’s lease agreements and lacked the resources to command a premium price, the company was limited in how much revenue it could derive from that resource.
By adding the Vaddio GroupSTATION, myBusinessBar is one of the few local physical locations to offer professional-level group collaboration capabilities. The high-fidelity, high-definition collaboration services make it much easier for the company to retain existing tenants and to attract new ones.
“The Vaddio GroupSTATION has transformed our conferencing room from a cost center to a profit center,” says Christiansen. “A room with video collaboration capabilities provides four times more revenue than a room without it.”
A smart decision to choose smart solutions
Vaddio conferencing solutions have helped put myBusinessBar on a new path to success. The high-quality, efficient video collaboration product has made the co-working space a destination for small business professionals, allowing the company to increase its revenues and cover the cost of its initial investment.
More importantly, the online group collaboration was the missing piece in myBusinessBar’s co-working offer. Its comprehensive suite of services has caught the attention not just of local business professionals, but also of the leading online meeting rooms broker in the United States. The company has selected myBusinessBar as its dedicated videoconference and shared workspace provider in Utah.
“It’s hard to imagine how much our business could change from one intelligently designed product,” Christiansen says. “Vaddio GroupSTATION has fundamentally changed the way we and our clients conduct business.”
