Why E-commuting Is The Best Way To Expand Your Business?
Back in 1875 one person invented a tool that changed the world in the way that Internet is changing it today. This smart guy arranged an agreement with two other men to invest in his invention. The three men formed a company to explore the new opportunities.
By 1914 the new company locations included Antwerp, London, Berlin, Milan, Paris, Vienna, St. Petersburg, Budapest, Tokyo, Montreal, Buenos Aires, and Sydney. A century after its founding this company became a multi billion dollar business with annual revenue of more than $50 billion. Today this business server more than 920 million customers and has more than 125,000 employees.
The name of that smart guy is Alexander Graham Bell and the company is called AT&T - the worlds largest telecommunications services provider.
And if you still wonder why I am telling you this story, I’m giving the answer right now. AT&T not only provides telecommunications, it uses them to such an extent that more than half of its employees have telework arrangements.
And there are still people who believe that e-commuting does not work?
But enough stories. Let’s take an example and add some maths. Let’s create two imaginary companies providing architectural services (no web development? I really beg to differ!) and having identical size. The first company is called ABC Architectural Design Landlocked and the other is XYZ Designers Bureau. Both companies have 20 employees including the boss and both operate in New York City. The only difference is that ABC Architectural Design Landlocked is a old fashioned company with a large (100 sq.m.) office while XYZ Designers Bureau has only a reception room and an exposition hall with 4 office employees total.
Economical Benefits of E-Commuting
I will now compare vey rough estimates of the yearly expenses for maintaining the business of these two companies. Furniture and computer prices are divided for 5 years usage.
| ABC Architectural Design Landlocked | XYZ Designers Bureau | |
|---|---|---|
| Office Rent | $36,000 | $12,000 |
| Computers and consumatives | $5,000 | $1,000 |
| Electricy/AC/Heating | $6,000 | $1,200 |
| Office Cleaning | $3,600 | $600 |
| Office Furniture | $8,000 | $1,600 |
| Travel To Office | $7,000 | $2,000 |
So at left we have $65,600 for ABC and at right - $18,400 for XYZ. Who is the winner now? XYZ can spend the difference of $47,200 on better advertising/innovations or business development.
And this is huge saving for such a small business. It’s not counting the better effectiveness which creative people like architects will have when given the comfort to work from home.
In additional to the financial savings for the company, it’s employees save average 2 hours per day to travel back and forth to the office and that is priceless.
Ecological Benefits of E-Commuting
Even if all you save is the everyday 20 km travel of 16 employees every day, you are doing a huge favor to the planet. Driving a private car is probably a typical citizen’s most polluting daily activity
If you don’t care about this, you have probably mistaken the century.
Certainly there are a lot of difficulties around creating a successful e-commuting company, but the benefits are so huge that these who do it will easily blow out the old-fashioned competition.
Do you still prefer to do it in the old way?
Filed under: Business 2.0