A2X Consulting

If you’re a business owner who is thinking more and more about taking less business trips, axing book-length business reports and holding less staff meetings at the office by holding Skype meetings instead, you are not alone. Matter of fact, you are right with the times because there are more companies are going green by going viral by the day. And how are they doing that? They are creating virtual data rooms.

So, how can you do that effectively? Here are five steps.

Travel less. There is a lot of fuel that is used when it comes to air and car travel. This also means that there are a lot of emissions that are put into the air. Matter of fact, according to one study, on a flight from New York to Denver, commercial jets use as much carbon dioxide per passenger as it would take an individual to use up in a month while driving an SUV. And a car? Well, another study cited that burning one gallon of gas equates to almost 20 pounds of carbon dioxide. So, yes, do the environment (and your budget) a favor by holding more conference calls via the phone or over Skype. It’s free and it doesn’t require any fuel to do so.

Go paperless (as much as possible). Although a lot of us still use paper in the workplace, if you really stop to think about it, doesn’t it seem a bit odd that we do? Conversations can be effectively exchanged via email, programs like Google Docs and SugarSync make it easier to send (and track) information to a large amount of people, contracts can be scanned and signed online and voice mail (rather than using sticky notes) can be used when it comes to leaving (and keeping record of) short messages. Yes, as it relates to using less paper, there are a myriad of ways that this can be applied. It just takes a bit of creativity, patience and forethought.

Work from home. If you sat down and tabulated just how much you spend in renting office space on an annual basis, that may be all of the convincing that you need to consider transitioning your company into a telecommute/viral workplace. For so many reasons and in so many ways, it can be financially beneficial while being extremely eco-friendly at the same time. By having your staff work from home, they use less of their own fuel in the commute back and forth to work. There is less of a need for tangible office supplies (oftentimes a phone and computer is all that is really needed). Communication can be made by phone and over the internet, and because employees are working out of their house/home office, it can cut down on daycare fees, wardrobe expenses, and even earn them a deduction on their yearly taxes. Chances are, if you asked your staff to fill out an online survey and had “click here” if you want to work in an office, it’s a pretty safe bet that you wouldn’t get many votes. So, if you’ve seriously been considering implementing a virtual data room, maybe this was all of the encouragement that you needed to go forward with that plan.

Virtual data rooms. No longer are they a “thing of the future”. The future is already here.