Tuesday, April 12, 2011

Taking a Peek in the Crystal ball: The Future of Virtual Assistance

Before we take a peek in the crystal ball, let us first reminisce the past and rekindle the birth of this profession. It is undeniable that virtual assistants sprung from the bosoms of secretaries. 

In ancient times, when typewriters were expensive, secretaries ruled the world of administrative support. In fact, there is not a single executive without a secretary.

Secretaries were a fad back then.

But in the turn of the century, the world became obsessed with technology and the Internet.

Everything was removed from its hinges.

The dawn of another century witnessed the blossoming of yet another profession that revolutionized the business world - Virtual assistance.

Then came the global economic recession - which was a really good thing for virtual assistance! Lots of businesses had to cut their costs, making them resort to outsourcing their work to virtual assistants.

Seeing this as a business opportunity, many people invested on it and started putting up virtual assistant companies dedicated to provide cheap yet high quality services to businesses both large and small. Ever since, virtual assistance has sprouted all over the world like mushrooms filling up your backyard the next day.


These were the milestones in virtual assistance history. Since our optimism makes us not to worry about what will happen on December 2012, we are pretty sure that the virtual assistant profession has a bright future.

In fact, a large company in the field of information technology business agree that virtual assistants have a really bright future. Analyst Firm Garner predicted that by year-end 2013, at least 15 percent of Fortune 1000 companies will use a virtual assistant to serve up Web self-service content to enhance their CRM offerings and service delivery.

The virtual assistant market is maturing, with a diverse set of vendors differentiated by factors ranging from cost and ease of use to support for software as a service and front-end or knowledge base support. As a result, selection criteria should extend beyond the image on the front end.

The virtual assistant profession on the other hand will also experience a fair weather future. Experts say that there will no longer certifications for virtual assistants. It doesn’t mean that anyone can now suddenly become a virtual assistant though. The reason why certifications won’t be needed anymore is because virtual assistance will now be offered as a degree in different colleges and universities.

However, before formally instituting virtual assistance as a profession, a proper definition to it must be established. That’s because the accepted definition of virtual assistant or virtual assistance is just a consensus definition.

Hopefully soon, the term ‘virtual assistant’ would be found in your Webster’s dictionary, with a clearer definition.  Or just change the term itself.

Truly brighter days are coming the way of both the virtual assistant business and profession. With the Internet now as the main medium of doing business, more businessmen will hire the services of a virtual assistant. More and more inputs will be added to the profession which will enrich it and sooner or later we will be stunned on how it will become one of the most in demand professions in the world. We will be witnessing a thrilling era in human history - the era of virtual assistance.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Hello,

The rise in the virtual assistance industry can only continue in the next several years because of the development in communication technologies. Today, more and more companies are choosing to hire VAs perform time-consuming tasks in the office so that they do not have to provide office space, equipment, bonuses and other benefits to the employee. Thanks a lot.....

Virtual Customer Support

VirtualAssistant.org said...

@SEO You are right, the internet and other communication technologies are the core of VA industry. In fact, if not because of the technology, VA wont even exist. Thanks for the comment. :)

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