Digital Nomads Get On the Cloud

Maria, Paul and Stephanie work for a successful European eCommerce company, headquartered in Dublin. None of them works from a fixed location. They communicate and collaborate with absolute normality from their home, the cafeteria, the taxi or the train. Their working day does not understand schedules, and they connect at 11am, 6pm or 11pm.

They all have something in common: they belong to the generation known as ‘millenials’ and have grown up with globalization and new technologies. They are fast, flexible and network. They do not need offices, tables, or rigidities. A mobile, a computer, the cloud and Internet connection are enough. They are ‘digital nomads’, and they are breaking the traditional schemes of work in the companies.

Many companies are taking notice, and are already adapting their systems to this new reality of the labor market.

The Rise of Mobility and Telecommuting

The digitization of work, the expansion of the Internet and the sophistication of communication and information technology have opened up a multitude of possibilities for workers. More and more tasks can be done remotely and this has made teleworking, previously only possible for the privileged few, become commonplace in the field of workers and businesses.

Although not all countries are evolving at the same pace in the implementation of telework, the percentage of people working at a distance increases continuously. This is demonstrated by the report published by the International Labor Organization (ILO) and the European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions (Eurofound), during the first quarter of 2017. This study, which analyzes 15 Countries of the EU, the Americas and Asia, shows that the incidence of teleworking “varies considerably between 2% and 40% of workers, depending on the country, the profession and the sector.”

Finland, Japan, the Netherlands, Sweden and the United States are the countries with the highest teleworking rates. Within Europe, the leaders in this practice are the Scandinavian countries followed by Belgium, France, Holland and United Kingdom. In the last positions are located Spain, Hungary, Italy and Germany.

Digital Nomads: Working Anywhere in the World

Digital nomads are people who take advantage of the freedom that technology gives them to work from anywhere in the world, and have jobs that do not depend on a specific geographic location to carry them out. There are different types of digital nomads: freelancers, freelancers groups working for the same company, entrepreneurs, or people working for companies from different parts of the world.

In the field of Digital Nomads, the most common professions are: journalists, photographers, correspondents, writers, web designers, programmers, bloggers, community managers, software developers, graphic designers, or any form of coworking. All these professions have a common characteristic: they allow working in an organized and collaborative way, even always virtually, and without needing to be in a specific geographical location or physical location.

Digital Nomads Companies?

The concept of digital nomads is not exclusive to freelance professionals. Today’s businesses tend increasingly to ‘nomadization’, fostering the extreme mobility and virtual collaboration of their workers. We are, therefore, before the expansion of a new type of companies: the ones formed by ‘Digital Nomads’.

Today, new companies and start-ups ‘millenials’ are born global and nomads. This allows them to reach dozens of markets very fast thanks to the focus on network communications and the use of collaborative tools, as opposed to the slowness and cost of starting up traditional offices.

Communication Tools for Digital Nomads Companies

Thanks to cloud telephony, it is possible to manage a virtual telephone PBX from anywhere, in real time. Cloud telephony systems offer unlimited possibilities for mobility and ‘nomadization’ of communications:

• Activate unlimited fixed and mobile extensions, operating worldwide, for ‘nomadic’ employees.

• Have ‘webphone’ extensions to convert the web browser of a tablet or laptop into a telephone terminal accessible from anywhere with Internet connection (goodbye to the desktop phone).

• Have mobile APPs to carry the corporate telephone extension in the personal mobile, and do not need to carry two mobiles on top.

• Increase or reduce the number of extensions in real time, to pay only for the ones they use at any time.

• Access statistics and cost reports for each line, extension and user, from an online control panel.

A virtual telephone PBX also provides other advantages to a digital nomad company:

• The virtual assistant with voice recognition to answer the calls without the need to have a physical receptionist in each country or office.

• Intelligent routing to carry the calls to the extension and appropriate user in each case according to multitude of parameters.

• Call recording to log, store, search and play all calls, or those that are needed at any time.

In a work environment where everything evolves and moves rapidly, and in which new professional profiles are emerging that look for alternatives to the established working parameters, it is key that there are technologies that can adapt to these new forms of life and work.

Cloud communications bring flexibility, efficiency and simplicity to companies in the 21st century that must respond quickly in a dynamic and globalized world. Through digital communication and collaboration tools, Digital Nomads are an increasingly consolidated reality, since they can offer service wherever they are, saving costs and time.

Digital nomad companies are here and they have come to stay.