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There are a number of eminent serviced and virtual office facilities in Hong Kong. In fact, the demand for serviced providers like Servcorp has skyrocketed in recent years. This is, in large part, due to the continued success of the region as a destination for foreign investment. The markets here offer a wealth of opportunities for smaller businesses and entrepreneurs.

The question is, how do you pick out the best-serviced facilities? What makes a great serviced office anyway? Should it come unfurnished or ready to go? Is a long or short term lease the most practical option? These are important questions and, fortunately, they have simple answers. One of the best things about serviced workspaces is that they’re flexible enough to meet most needs.

This guide to picking the perfect serviced office will help you get your business off the ground.

Take a Tour

What you shouldn’t do is just dive in head first and take the first workspace that appears. Ideally, you want an opportunity to verify all of the claims made by a provider. In other words, if they say that their IT systems are highly sophisticated, it’s your job to check them out and confirm it. The good news is that most facilities are happy to offer guided tours.

Chat with the Front Desk

It always a good idea to stop and talk with the receptionist and front desk staff. They represent the front line of the workspace and that means your front line too. They are the hub through which all of the office activity flows, so they are the best people to ask for information. Don’t forget to find out what kind of phone answering services are available.

Consider Furnishings

Some providers offer fully furnished workspaces and others offer unbranded, unfurnished offices which are pretty much a blank slate. There are also a number of facilities which contain both, so it is up to you. Generally, entrepreneurs and small businesses find ‘ready to go’ offices a real asset, as there are few overhead costs involved with getting set up.

Check Out the Terms

One of the biggest advantages of opting for a short term lease is the freedom to renegotiate whenever you like. This shouldn’t be underestimated, because having the ability to respond to market changes, particularly in a major city like Hong Kong, is an effective way to stay stable through rocky times. Make sure that your lease is renewable after months and not years.

Read the Reviews

If you want to get a feel for the place and how it treats its clients, search for reviews and testimonials. Or, even better, talk to some of the users when you tour the facility. It is really important to gather as much information as you can before you make your decision and who knows better than the people who already use the service?

Ask Your Employees

Don’t forget that your team is the lifeblood of the business. If your employees aren’t happy in an office, they’ll find it hard to give you the best performance. So, take the time to ask for their opinions. If the office provider allows it, taking pictures during a tour is an easy way to show your team what they could be moving into.

Why a Serviced Office is Your Ticket to Success

To retain a valuable degree of agility and flexibility, smaller businesses need negotiable terms and short leases. Opting for these things doesn’t have to lead to instability. You can end up staying in an office for as long as it suits, but having the option to make changes is what matters. With serviced workspaces, this is straightforward and doesn’t involve costly fees.

Hotels are lucrative businesses in many parts of the world. The value of a room increases exponentially if you manage to start up a location in a well-received city such as London, Paris or New York. If you want maximum exposure as a hotel, then you’re going to need to start up a hotel in one of these bustling locations. Sadly, that’s a dream for many people. In fact, for a lot of people around the world, it’s a dream to even live in one of those cities with a vibrant nightlife scene and a medley of cultures.

However, that doesn’t mean a hotel can’t work in remote areas or lesser known cities. With enough time, planning and research, you can start up a hotel that not only accommodates people that want to visit the area, but you might even be able to draw people to the location because of your hotel. If you’re still interested in starting your own hotel, then take a look at these following points before you get started.

Location is Important

You need to do plenty of research into areas before you start up a hotel business. If you’re just starting out, this means you’re going to need to find a hidden gem somewhere in your local area because it’s unlikely you will have the time and resources to fund an operation in another city let alone another country. Think about local attractions and the location of your proposed hotel. Worry about things like amenities and always try to have your hotel near public transportation to make it easy to reach.

Research the Competition

Make sure you do a bit of research into your rivals in the area. Keep in mind that there are several different types of “hotel”. For example, there are motels, guest houses and bed and breakfasts to compete with. They all serve different purposes, so you want to try and stand out from the competition and offer your potential guests something that the rest of the competition can’t. If there are no bed and breakfast locations in the area, then consider setting one up so you won’t be directly competing with other big-name hotels or established businesses.

Managing Your Hotel

A hotel is going to need a lot of staff members. From accountants to chefs and handymen, you’re going to need a full team that is capable of helping you run a successful hotel. You also want to make use of hoteling software if you want to have an easier time managing your hotel. You can also outsource certain operations such as repairs instead of having a dedicated mechanic or handyman in your team.

Give Your Hotel a Purpose

Since you’re running a small hotel, the chances of you getting holidaymakers is slim unless you are lucky and have your hotel in a prime tourist location. This means that you’re more likely going to get travellers and business people checking in at your hotel, and you need to accommodate this. Instead of having touristy decorations that reflect the local area, save money and get simple furniture and work on useful amenities for business people such as a good internet connection, food and good quality showers and beds.

Business owners who run a busy office need to place emphasis on keeping everyone safe. While you probably invest a lot of time and money in general health and safety, you also need to think outside of the box. There is a good chance that something unpredictable will happen at some point. So, we’re going to focus on planning for emergencies today. If your premises suffers a fire or something like that, you must evacuate everyone as soon as possible. However, that isn’t the easiest task if you didn’t plan for the eventuality in advance. With that in mind, use the three tips on this page to become a better boss and make sure everyone leaves without injury at the end of the working day.

Design a fire evacuation route

Firstly, you’ll need to spend some time working out the fastest way out of your building. You also need to consider things like obstructions that could delay your team. Once you’ve come up with the ideal route, you just need to perform some fire drills. Make sure everyone knows where they are expected to congregate outside. You should also keep a register close to the door so you can find out if you’ve left anyone behind. While you should never re-enter a building that’s on fire, you can let the firefighters know someone needs assistance. Try to ensure that your designated meeting point is more than twenty metres away from your premises for the best outcomes.  

Make sure you have the latest safety equipment

There is lots of different fire safety equipment you could purchase. At the very least, you need two different types of extinguisher. You’re going to want one that uses water, and another that uses foam. That is because you don’t want to spray water on an electrical fire. You will injure yourself and probably get electrocuted in the process. Specialists like Fire Products employ designers who work hard to create the best accessories too. So, maybe you should check the market and see if there is anything that could help to protect your staff better? Using the correct nozzles and hoses can make a big difference.

Link your alarms to a local fire station

Most local fire stations offer a service to business owners that you should use. For a fee, they will connect your alarm system to their offices. As soon as the alarm triggers, firefighters will pile into their vehicles and head in your direction. Sometimes precious seconds count, and so you’ll want them to arrive as soon as possible. That is never going to happen if you have to search around for your mobile phone and give them a call. Of course, the downside to that strategy is that you will have to pay a small fire if your alarms trigger by accident. Still, it’s worth the expense.

Now you know how to deal with the most serious office emergencies, we hope you manage to keep your team safe. Next, you need to start thinking about how you can protect your premises from floods. Again, there are lots of things you can do to improve your chances if you think ahead. See you back here soon!

It takes a lot to start a business – that goes without saying, but starting your hotel? It could be a heck of a lot harder.

There is so much to consider with opening a hotel and the first is money, you’re going to need a fair amount to get started. You need to prepare yourself well, and you’ll need to do a huge amount of research and ensure your business plan is developed well – this will help you obtain the capital you need to start off. If you include a summary of what your company can offer, compose a comprehensive analysis of the market and your competition, identify your long term goals and appeal to investors your business plan will be sound.

A good idea would be to visit competing hotels to get an idea of what they offer and how you can differentiate your hotel from their offerings whether it be your amenities or services – put it in your plan.

It is so important to decide early on on exactly what type of hotel you want to run and the accommodation that you will offer. Will it be an affordable budget number or will you be boutique and upscale? What about the amenities on offer? Will you provide a swimming spa and a gymnasium? What about breakfasts and beauty spas? Of course, your location will need to be considered – a luxury hotel next to a roaring highway might not be the best option, but it is up to you – but competition might be strong in other areas.

A hotel is a rather unique proposition as you’ll need plenty of licenses in order to operate your hotel. Depending on your location you’ll need a permit to operate, licenses for selling food, licenses for selling alcohol, a license for the manager of the hotel and you may even need licenses for every amenity you offer from a swimming pool to a health spa. Insurance is also key.

Thankfully, like most businesses, it is technically easier than ever to run a hotel and while there is so much hard work to do there are plenty of hospitality solutions providers and software developers out there who can make your life a great deal easier. You still need to keep it clean while you manage though!

It might be a good idea to purchase an existing hotel before remodeling and refurbishing it. This gives you a good location and a building ready made for your business. Make sure that all the utilities of the building function – the electricity and plumbing mainly. While you might be a dab hand at design, you should speak to an interior design firm to decorate your site on a large scale.

Many hotels don’t make a great deal of money from the get-go – so promote your business via travel websites and social media to get as much attention, and money, as possible. It’s a hard slog, but with a determined mindset you can achieve it and run the hotel that you have been dreaming of!

Nowadays, more and more businesses of all sizes are finding themselves directly in charge of how they get their products into the hands of customers. It allows you to add a bit of extra service onto what your business provides. But if you get it wrong, it can lead to some seriously unhappy customers and an arm of the business so inefficient it costs you more than it earns you.

Heading in the wrong direction

One of the concerns that is surprisingly troubling for newer businesses is just how easy it is to get it wrong simply because they don’t check the address. It’s understandable that a busy day can lead to the occasional mistake with detail. In delivery, however, your customer won’t find it acceptable that a wrong address leads to delays or even a failure to deliver. For one, keep your customer in the loop, communicating about the progress of the package. The can see for themselves and identify issues that you might not have caught onto yet. But it’s better to simply prevent the mess from ever happening by making use of address validation software if you can’t manually check the addresses. It’s one of the simplest mistakes you can make, but also one of the worst.

Dents and dings

It’s embarrassing to get called up about damage to a product or even to have your business publicly criticized for it. You might not have as much control over your own deliveries as you would like so you have to make sure that products are kept safe by any means necessary. This might mean using custom shipping cases for the more sensitive materials, for instance. In industries like computer parts, dead-on-arrival items are an unfortunate reality of the business. If you share that reality, then you should be providing warranties to cover those items. You shouldn’t make the mistakes of your delivery system (and by extension you) the responsibility of the customer.

You’re not taking enough control of the process (or you’re taking too much control)

If you’re suffering from a sluggish delivery service and you’re not able to get things shipped to customers in time, you have to look at how much influence you have directly on the process. If you’re handling it internally, you need to look at creating a more efficient mailing room by considering the most economic ways to get packages from one process to the next. You can also look at using telemetrics if you employ your own drivers to see the routes they’re using and the kind of time they’re seeing on their journeys. Of course, some businesses simply aren’t yet fit to handle the full responsibility of delivering their goods. If you’ve scaled into the responsibility too quickly, then you may wish to look into using outsourced fulfillment services.

You can’t simply treat the delivery side of the business like it’s just an accessory. It’s a big part of the service you provide and in some cases will wholly color a customer’s opinion of the business take it seriously.

The trucking industry is worth a lot of money, and forging a little corner of the market for yourself can be incredibly lucrative. However, it is also an extremely competitive environment, and many trucking startups with big dreams of success end up in failure after a year.

To avoid becoming part of these statistics, you’ll need to learn a little about the golden rules of trucking businesses. These simple steps will set you up nicely, ensure you are controlling your costs, and help you transition from a startup into a viable business with plenty of potential.

Market research

Before doing anything like investing in trucks, make sure you know who you are targeting. Establishing your market is a critical part of the early stages of your startup, as the market is so competitive. Many newcomers to the industry get their first customers from a load board, but the problem with these is that they are almost impossible to run at a profit.

Develop a niche

The best way to go is to work out a niche for your trucking company – a focus on fashion or refrigerated foods, for example – and start contacting relevant manufacturers and making sales calls. It’s hard work – but it will be worth it in the end as you can establish some excellent long-term relationships with clients. The most important aspect of developing a niche is that it eliminates a lot of the competition, so you will be able to spend less time involved in price wars and more time focusing on establishing better relationships.

Invest in logistics

Running a successful trucking company is all about keeping a close eye on your costs and ensuring you offer your customers the best deal. It’s a tricky balance to strike, but one thing that can g9ive you the edge is a grounding in logistics. Logistics is, in effect, the planning of routes to ensure you are always using the cheapest path from A to B. It’s a subject worth investing in as much can go wrong, from sending out half full trucks to taking less than optimum routes.

Find a reliable fuel supplier

Fuel will be your major expense and your biggest concern. According to New Era Fuels, it is essential that you find a bulk fuel delivery company who is reliable and can offer same day deliveries to ensure the smooth running of your business. Make sure that you are keeping costs down as much as possible, too – with fuel price fluctuations occurring on an almost daily basis, a little knowledge of the oil industry might go a long way to helping you find the best deals. A few pence on the mile in either direction could have a significant impact on your business, so you’ll need t be in a position where you can account for sudden rises and falls in fuel price.

Encourage safety

Finally, make sure your drivers are all doing their jobs in a safe manner. Under pressure, drivers can often speed, or go too long without breaks – and it is essential that you allow them to drive safely. Investing in tracking software can help, as it will show you they are sticking within the speed limits and taking regular breaks.

Converting an attic is an easy way of adding extra liveable space to your home, whilst increasing its value. It’s generally much cheaper than building an extension and in most cases more viable. However, before you go transforming your attic, it pays to know the laws and tricks of the trade so that your lofty conversion plans don’t fall through.

Ask for planning permission

Before getting any work done to property, this should always be the first step. A loft conversion generally shouldn’t be a problem, but planning departments can be finicky, and it’s best to always check first rather than going ahead only to be told by the council later down the line that you have to undo all your hard work. Work that can be turned down by planning departments generally includes raising the roof or adding a dormer window or balcony.

Get in the professionals

Turning a loft into a liveable space can entail all kinds of work from rewiring to insulation to extra plumbing to removing gables. Save yourself the hassle by investing in professionals to do the job for you. There are some companies (such as this one owned by Nicolas Livsit) that can do all the various handyman jobs for you. Alternatively, you may find you can save costs by doing one job yourself and hiring other professionals for the jobs you’re not too savvy at.

Notify your insurance provider

If you have home insurance, it may be worth notifying them of the changes you’re making to ensure you still get paid in the event of a claim. Some providers will refuse to pay out if you have made changes to your property that have not been declared. This is because the risk value of your property may have gone up, and therefore you should be paying a higher premium. Notify them just to be safe – a kind insurance provider may not put up your premiums at all.

Observe fire safety

Loft conversions come with all kinds of fire safety requirements, which will be necessary if you want to declare your attic as an extra bedroom. Generally you will always need a staircase as opposed to a ladder. Adding stairs could involve stripping back part of a room below so bear this in mind. Taller properties (those more than two storeys) may require fire escapes, whereas you may be able to get away with a lot less in a bungalow.

Should you raise the roof?

All liveable rooms must meet a minimum height requirement of 2.2m. This can throw a spanner in the works of many would-be loft conversions, as this involves then accounting for the extra cost of raising the roof. You can get away with a pitched roof, so long as the central usable part of the attic reaches 2.2m. If you are unsure about what constitutes ‘useable’ it’s always best to hire a surveyor who can assess it for you.

With everything that comes with running a business, it can be hard to remember some of the smaller things. And, of course, this can cause some big problems for a business. One of the more common problems is cleaning. It’s hard for staff to find the time to do it off of their own backs, and as a busy owner, it’s easy for you to forget. But, this doesn’t make the cleanliness of a business any less important. To help you with this area, this post will be going through some of the easiest ways to make sure that business stays clean.

Staff Cleaning

One of the easiest ways to get a business clean is to use regular staff to do the job. Of course, in some cases, this won’t be possible. But, some businesses may find that this is a great way to save some time and money, without losing any productivity. This will be different for varying types of business, though. And, things will be handled uniquely for each type of business.

It’s very common in food places, like cafes and restaurants, for the staff to do most of the cleaning work. Usually, this is handled in small chunks throughout the day, with a much larger clean at closing time. Having staff do this will usually make it much easier for the work to be done. It can save you from having to hire additional staff. And, it will mean that the work is done quickly. Most places pay for an extra hour of their staff’s time, to make up for the work that they do. In an office environment, this might not work quite so well. But, you’ll at least be able to have people clean up their own mess. This will limit the amount of time that needs to be spent cleaning and will make it easier for other staff to pick up the workload.

In an environment, like an office, you may find that some staff have a lot of down time that they spend doing nothing productive. For most people, these are the most boring parts of a job. A lot people will spend this time doing nothing, making it feel like a long time. Giving the option to fill this time with a little bit of cleaning can be enough to get an entire office sparkling. It’s amazing how people will work hard to fill time. But, they will. Of course, you can’t take advantage of things like this too often. Otherwise, people will feel like they’re doing work out of their job description. And, they will. So, it always has to be a choice, as well.

Professional Cleaning

In a lot of cases, using staff to do cleaning for you won’t be a viable option. Your staff may be too busy or simply unwilling to do the job. So, you might need some help. Thankfully, it’s easy to find help with something like cleaning. Services everywhere offer this service, and most businesses can afford it.

When it’s easier to simply hire someone to deal with the issue for you, it’s best to go for a professional. In this case, you need to consider how often you need your place cleaned. In most cases, this will be anywhere from daily to once a week. But, you will also need occasional deep cleans, to make sure that areas don’t get forgotten and lost to dirt. This schedule will depend on the business that you run. Health and hygiene regulations will usually dictate that food places need to be cleaned daily. But, an office will be much less dirty so that it can be cleaned less regularly. The services that you can use range from emptying bins right up to full-scale cleans. So, you should be able to find something that matches your business’s needs.

Finding these companies is easy. They are in most towns and cities, and some are even mobile. So, you shouldn’t have an issue getting the work done. If you have multiple options, you need to consider them very wisely. Make sure that they’re not charging far too much for the work by looking at other companies for a reference. A company like Southern Cross Cleaning Services is a great place to start, to make sure that you’re getting a good deal. Read reviews online, as well. This will give you an idea of how well the company has dealt with other customers. This information can be invaluable when it comes to finding the best cleaner for you.

The Right Tools

In most cases, cleaning jobs are made harder because poor quality or incorrect tools are used. It’s easy to assume a cloth will do for just everything. But, in reality, cleaning can be made much easier using tools that are designed for the task. Thankfully, it’s easy to find tools for this sort of work. You just need to do some research.

Your research will start by looking at the materials that you need to clean. Research these, and find out the best methods for cleaning them. In doing this, you will also find out which tools need to be used. Now, you can start comparing. Always make sure that you compare items against each other with more than just price in mind. Sometimes, it can be better to spend a little bit more, so that you get a much better product. Once you have the products in mind, look for trade sellers who can give you business prices for the goods. This can make them cheaper and easier to get. You also need to consider the chemicals you use for work. Most of the time, off-the-shelf brands will be good enough. But, value ones might not.

Hopefully, this will help you when it comes to your future cleaning. A lot about a business can be told by the way that it looks. And, dirt looks bad. So, people won’t like your business if it isn’t clean. It’s essential that you keep this in mind. It could be the difference between life and death for your business, especially if you sell food.

The most frustrating problems in your business often come from errors that could have been avoided. You knew full well when you hired your employees that they may make mistakes. That’s just a given. But the financial loss, customer dissatisfaction and lowered worker morale that comes from these missteps can be unnerving. Although you can’t completely rid your workplace of these problems, there are some steps you can take to keep them to a minimum. Here are some human error problems and solutions to think about.

Company Transparency

Did you know that your company’s culture is an important factor in preventing human error? It’s a sad fact that many workplaces have been unsuccessful at creating transparency among workers and supervisors. Sometimes workers fear retaliation from those above them if they open up about the problems they are experiencing.

If this describes your company’s culture, your employees won’t feel comfortable addressing human-error concerns. They’ll be more likely to cover them up to keep their job. Although there needs to be a balance between genuine concerns and griping sessions, transparency will go a long way in preventing human error in your business. Over time, you can build a high level of trust and transparency with your workers by better listening to them and working together for solutions.

Proper Staffing

There is a delicate balance when it comes to staffing your business appropriately. Too much staff and your employees will sit on their hands. Having too few workers will present its own challenges. If you’re understaffed, expect to see a big spike in errors at your workplace. Workers who do the job of several people are the most vulnerable. Cutting corners, the inability to look over a job after it’s completed, and carelessness caused by fatigue become daily occurrences in this case.

While your payroll may be kept lower, that doesn’t mean that your expenses will be. You’ll spend more in the long run if you stay understaffed. This will lead to a whole host of errors, burned-out workers and dissatisfied customers. You may need to hire an outside consultant to help you with this challenge if it has become a reoccurring issue.

Payments

Human error involving payments can be uniquely upsetting. It can cause you to miss deadlines for funds going out and keep you from getting paid accurately, or at all. As your business progresses, you will greatly benefit from a software program to help you handle the many complex transactions of your business. More and more businesses are profiting from installing Bacs Payment Software. Through its program, payments can be made and received automatically. The system can also flag potential payment issues to keep them from becoming major problems down the road.

Work Guidelines

Having too few or not enough guidelines for a job can lead to human error in the workplace. If you spell out what you want to be done for a job with unrealistic expectations, your employees won’t take your wishes seriously. If you provide too few instructions, you run the risk of your workers being unsure how to complete a task. It’s a good idea to periodically share feedback to see how work processes are going. You can then modify protocol and expectations to cut down on human error if needed.

Healthy Workers

By keeping employees healthy, business owners can maximize their staff’s performance and build a better work environment. Workers who regularly have too many tasks to complete properly, are expected to put in unrealistic hours, and who work in a potentially toxic work environment will inevitably lead to more human error.

Setting realistic limits on a daily and weekly basis for your workers will help. Overworking them will give neither you nor your worker what you desire. Your workers will resent being taken away from leisure and family activities and the presence of debilitating stress. You will be troubled by plummeting productivity. Take care of your workers with health incentive programs, the chance to do work remotely and realistic hours.

Summary

Every business owner would love to snap their fingers and make human error go away for good. Overcoming the many ways that human error can infiltrate your ranks takes time, though. By first identifying major culprits for error in your business and then implementing solutions, you’ll see major improvement. This will mean happier customers, employees and a happier you. You’ll also generate a lot more revenue in the process.