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Conference Your Office Anywhere Identifies New Business Opportunities In Coworking , Virtual Office And Other Models.

At the conference organized by the Avila Business Centers in December in Lisbon, was come to the conclusion that choosing Coworking and virtual offices is a rat ional measure and an intelligent choice. Lisbon, 28th December 2011 The Avila Business Centers, company of turnkey physic al work spaces for renting and leader in the virtual offices business in Portuga l, organized the first national conference on virtual offices, Coworking and oth er models representing the office of the future. The Your Office Anywhere was a perfect stage to discuss the future of businesses and encourage the entrepreneur ship. With the participation of more than 150 professionals, the Your Office Anywhere served to discuss tendencies, identify investment opportunities in times of econ omical difficulties and find a path towards the office and professionals of the future. The conference was composed by two panels who discussed the current situ ation of physical offices renting market and the new technologies which allow a professional to have ones office available anytime anywhere, using technological mobile platforms. Among the speakers were specialists in the real estate consultancy, architecture , business centers, Coworking, IT and mobile applications, with a special highli ght to Carolina Rendeiro, a recognized leader and expert with over thirty years of experience on the Business Centers industry in the USA, CEO of the consultant Right Space Management and director of the Global Workspace Association (ex- Of fice Business Center Association International), the major worldwide association of the business centers, Coworking solutions and virtual offices sector. There were also present Marco Santos, responsible for the Microsoft Business Off ice Division in Portugal, Paulo Silva, CEO of Aguirre Newman and Mariana Seabra from Jones Lang LaSalle. The main conclusions were as follow: FIRST PANEL: THE OFFICESMARKET IN PORTUGAL - Jones Lang LaSalle identified a present scenario characterized by a hostile ec onomical climate and by a market affected by austerity measures, low levels of con fidence and lack of Prime offer. These facts take to, according to Mariana Seabra , a rental retraction and the showing up of clients demanding more Prime quality products at accessible prices. To fight these tendencies, the responsible reminds that owners will have to crea te incentives to the renting in order to increase occupation. However, to Marian a Seabra, the crisis also generates opportunities: Occupation of Prime spaces at lower prices and a strong presence of pharmaceutical and loan defaults companies , which are financially fine! Like so, for the Jones Lang LaSalle responsible, 2 012 is the year of the 3 Rs: rethink, reposition and re-launch. Mariana Seabra al so reminds that clients will be focused on the use of new technologies in the nex t ten years, situation which will end up to affect the entire market. Aguirre Newman pointed essentially to new Human Resources tendencies for the sec ond decade of this century. The world is demanding for us to reinvent ourselves a t a Human Resources level. It is time for mobility, this is the keyword. New wor k concepts have arisen: interaction, flexibility, communication, sharing. Togethe r with new concepts connected to the Human Resources, also showed new space tend encies: the co-working (to which Patrcia Liz calls the golden brainchild), the hot -desking (will stop being residual to become normal; flexibility to rent a room by the hour or by the day), virtual office (capability to be in the office witho ut having a work space, a reality which leads to a restructure in the real estat e agents activity; way of not taking chances on the investment in order to rent

a physical space; way of having security in an uncertain period), and the ope n-space. SECOND PAINEL: CONSUMPTION TRENDS IN THE VIRTUAL OFFICES AN NEW TECHNOLOGIES Carolina Rendeiro was the main presence of this conference and spoke of her expe rience in the USA market, where she is since 1978. Since then, this industry alre ady had many names, but it started with an answering named call centers, reminds the expert. In the USA we fight against time lost in transportation to get to work and what m atter is the technology for users to interact with the office. The society is at the break of an historical change, counts Carolina Rendeiro. The Global Workspa ce Association (GWA) director has always been quite positive during her interven tion and was not tired of repeating that in each of the crisis she went through, opportunities were created: Statistics are the same all over the world. In the U SA each crisis is an opportunity, its the existing mentality. Some sectors will n ever exist again and people are prepared to do the change, underlined Carolina Re ndeiro. Regarding the major trend of the moment in the USA, Carolina speaks for the pref erence companies have on having bigger spaces to offer for Coworking areas. Starb ucks, the Hyatt and Marriott hotels have already demanded information to be part of the GWA and enter in this industry, reveals the offices and business centers market expert. However there is a counter with which the American market is faci ng on: Banks are not financing business centers in the USA, unfortunately. Invest ment comes only from the private sector and the major commercial investors in th e real estate area are trying to diversify their portfolios. Pedro Coutinho from WATERDOG mobile began to speak of the history of the mobile terminals, which started in 1973 with the mobile phone from Motorola created by Martin Cooper, showing after the first Smartphone of the world that reached the market in 1992, Simon. According to him, at that time there were no conditions f or the Smartphone to be worthwhile for users. Only in the latest years communicat ions started being very useful to us. From2009 onwards the mobile data tripled. Until 2015, the multiplication is going to be even bigger, warned Pedro Coutinho. With mobile devices and applications, users may, according to him, control all t he business services of the company: ERP, CRM, Project management, documental ma nagement and billing. Currently, we are more advanced than getting home and conne ct to the company server. We may have on our Smartphone and tablet all that is ke pt in the office PC. Rui Lopes Swipe Twice Partner, presented the myOffice app as a case study The myOf fice is a contact and management platform in real time, which sends to the clien t all information online. This is, sends all the messages, phone calls, corresp ondence arrival which are send to the client reminded Rui Lopes. The app is free for all Avila Business Centers clients and is also available for those willing t o see how it works: all you need to do is search for myOffice on the App Store and choose the option Demo User that appears on the pop-up window. In 2012, Rui Lopes revealed the app is going to have an optimized version for iP ad and the internationalization is going to happen: Any business center will be a ble to buy this technology. In order to put myOffice even more wide-ranging and e ffective, Rui Lopes advanced a series of new functionalities also previewed for the first months of 2012: online schedule of meeting and Coworking rooms and su bscription online of the office service from the app. With this we may have a vir tual Office in a space of 1 or 2 days, guaranteed the responsible of Swipe Twice that also reminded other gains of the myOffice app: The user has the possibility

to see ABC partners abroad, that belong to the eOffice Network and, in the futur e to the myOffice International Network. Marco Santos, Microsoft Director, showed how easy it is to have collaborative ac tion at a distance with interconnection with different office software, counting with the help of the SharePoint and Lync recent services. The presence in this c onference is a new alliance and that is why we have accepted the challenge, began to state Marcos Santos. From his presentation, the Microsoft responsible highli ghted three data regarding the countries reality: Portugal is 30% inferior in term s of productivity in relation to Europe, according to a study from the PEA (Port uguese Entrepreneurship Association), Portugal works in average 9 hours per day, says the OECD, which is too long for the existing production; 83% of the compan ies with more than ten people already use broadband; and a very concerning data: the IDC says the amount invested by the SMEs in technology is diminishing. For Marcos Santos, the future of productivity has everything to do with the offi ces. We have to be productive apart from the devices we use, to use the informati on the more comfortable way: on-premises or in the cloud, or a mix of both. Ther e must be a redefinition of the concept of productivity, a major easiness to acc ess content, to share with clients and colleagues. Afterwards, the presentation o f Marcos Santos was quite practical and captivated the audience with an interact ion in real time with a colleague from Microsoft where together edited documents remotely and communicated recurring to a conference call with the help of Share Point and Microsoft Lync resources. He also demonstrated that is possible to improve productivity, using technology, showing some indicators beyond any doubts: 301 per cent of ROI in 7,4 months, s avings of 25/50% in dislocations costs, savings of 20% in IT budget, reduction of requirements in training in 25% and more 10% of savings in indirect costs. About Avila Business Centers Founded in 2004 with the name Espao Avila Business Centers, the company changed i ts designation to Avila Business Centers in 2011. Besides renting turnkey physic al work spaces, is leader in the virtual offices business where presents solutio ns with prices between 55 and 85 Euros per month, with several services associat ed, among them legal and financial support, personalized telephone answering and access to the potentialities of remote management of the myOffice app for mobil e devices: Android, iPhone and iPad. In May 2011 was created the brand Franchis e Set-Up, to support start-up franchised companies. Currently it counts with more than 300 national and international clients and is member and representative in Portugal of the major Business Center network in t he World, the eOffice International Network, with more than 300 locations and ma naged from the United Kingdom. Avila Business Centers has its premises in Lisbon , in Avenida da Repblica and in Avenida Joo Crisstomo. For more information visit w ww.avilabusinesscenter.com.

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