Small office/home office (or single office/home office; sometimes short SOHO) refers to the category of

business Business is the practice of making one's living or making money by producing or Trade, buying and selling Product (business), products (such as goods and Service (economics), services). It is also "any activity or enterprise entered into for ...

cottage industry The putting-out system is a means of subcontracting work, like a tailor. Historically, it was also known as the workshop system and the domestic system. In putting-out, work is contracted by a central agent to subcontractors who complete the p ...

that involves from 1 to 1000 workers. In

New Zealand New Zealand () is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and List of islands of New Zealand, over 600 smaller islands. It is the List of isla ...

, the

Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment The Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment ( MBIE; ) is the public service department of New Zealand charged with "delivering policy, services, advice and regulation" which contribute to New Zealand's economic productivity and business ...

(MBIE) defines a small office as 6–19 employees and a micro office as 1–5.

History

Before the 19th century, and the spread of the

Industrial Revolution The Industrial Revolution, sometimes divided into the First Industrial Revolution and Second Industrial Revolution, was a transitional period of the global economy toward more widespread, efficient and stable manufacturing processes, succee ...

around the globe, nearly all offices were small offices and/or home offices, with only a few exceptions. Most businesses were small, and the paperwork that accompanied them was limited. The industrial revolution aggregated workers in factories, to mass-produce goods. In most circumstances, the

white collar White collar may refer to: * White-collar worker, a professional who performs office-based or similar service-based jobs, as opposed to a blue-collar worker, whose job requires manual labor * White-collar boxing * White-collar crime The term ...

counterpart—office work—was aggregated as well in large buildings, usually in cities or densely populated suburban areas. Beginning in the mid-1980s, the advent of the

personal computer A personal computer, commonly referred to as PC or computer, is a computer designed for individual use. It is typically used for tasks such as Word processor, word processing, web browser, internet browsing, email, multimedia playback, and PC ...

and

fax machine Fax (short for facsimile), sometimes called telecopying or telefax (short for telefacsimile), is the telephonic transmission of scanned printed material (both text and images), normally to a telephone number connected to a printer or other out ...

, plus breakthroughs in

telecommunications Telecommunication, often used in its plural form or abbreviated as telecom, is the transmission of information over a distance using electronic means, typically through cables, radio waves, or other communication technologies. These means of ...

, created opportunities for office workers to decentralize. Decentralization was also perceived as benefiting employers in terms of lower overheads and potentially greater productivity.

Professions

Many

consultant A consultant (from "to deliberate") is a professional (also known as ''expert'', ''specialist'', see variations of meaning below) who provides advice or services in an area of specialization (generally to medium or large-size corporations). Cons ...

s and the members of such

profession A profession is a field of Work (human activity), work that has been successfully professionalized. It can be defined as a disciplined group of individuals, professionals, who adhere to ethical standards and who hold themselves out as, and are ...

s like

lawyer A lawyer is a person who is qualified to offer advice about the law, draft legal documents, or represent individuals in legal matters. The exact nature of a lawyer's work varies depending on the legal jurisdiction and the legal system, as w ...

s, real estate agents, and

surveyors Surveying or land surveying is the technique, profession, art, and science of determining the terrestrial two-dimensional or three-dimensional positions of points and the distances and angles between them. These points are usually on the ...

in small and medium-sized towns operate from home offices. Several ranges of products, such as the

armoire desk An armoire desk is a writing-table built within a large cabinet, usually {{convert, 1.5, -, 2.0, m, ft, sigfig=1, abbr=off high. The cabinet is closed by two to four full-height doors, to keep out dust or to give a tidy appearance to a room by hi ...

all-in-one printer An MFP (multi-function product/printer/peripheral), multi-functional, all-in-one (AIO), or multi-function device (MFD), is an office machine which incorporates the functionality of multiple devices in one, so as to have a smaller footprint in a ...

virtual assistant A virtual assistant (VA) is a software agent that can perform a range of tasks or services for a user based on user input such as commands or questions, including verbal ones. Such technologies often incorporate chatbot capabilities to streaml ...

home server A home server is a computing server located in a private computing residence providing services to other devices inside or outside the household through a home network or the Internet. Such services may include file and printer serving, media ...

s and

network-attached storage Network-attached storage (NAS) is a file-level computer data storage server connected to a computer network providing data access to a Heterogeneous computing, heterogeneous group of clients. In this context, the term "NAS" can refer to both th ...

are designed specifically for the SOHO market. A number of books and

magazines A magazine is a periodical literature, periodical publication, print or digital, produced on a regular schedule, that contains any of a variety of subject-oriented textual and visual content (media), content forms. Magazines are generally fin ...

have been published and marketed specifically at this type of office. These range from general advice texts to specific guidebooks on such challenges as setting up a small PBX for the office

telephone A telephone, colloquially referred to as a phone, is a telecommunications device that enables two or more users to conduct a conversation when they are too far apart to be easily heard directly. A telephone converts sound, typically and most ...

s. Technology has also created a demand for larger businesses to employ individuals who work from home. Sometimes these people remain as independent businesspersons, and sometimes they become employees of a larger company. The small office home office has undergone a transformation since its advent as the

Internet The Internet (or internet) is the Global network, global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a internetworking, network of networks ...

has enabled anyone working from a home office to compete globally. Technology has made this possible through

email Electronic mail (usually shortened to email; alternatively hyphenated e-mail) is a method of transmitting and receiving Digital media, digital messages using electronics, electronic devices over a computer network. It was conceived in the ...

, the

World-Wide Web The World Wide Web (WWW or simply the Web) is an information system that enables Content (media), content sharing over the Internet through user-friendly ways meant to appeal to users beyond Information technology, IT specialists and hobbyis ...

e-commerce E-commerce (electronic commerce) refers to commercial activities including the electronic buying or selling products and services which are conducted on online platforms or over the Internet. E-commerce draws on technologies such as mobile co ...

videoconferencing Videotelephony (also known as videoconferencing or video calling) is the use of audio signal, audio and video for simultaneous two-way communication. Today, videotelephony is widespread. There are many terms to refer to videotelephony. ''Vide ...

remote desktop software In computing, the term remote desktop refers to a software- or operating system feature that allows a personal computer's desktop environment to be run remotely from one system (usually a PC, but the concept applies equally to a server or a sma ...

VPN Virtual private network (VPN) is a network architecture for virtually extending a private network (i.e. any computer network which is not the public Internet) across one or multiple other networks which are either untrusted (as they are not c ...

VLAN A virtual local area network (VLAN) is any broadcast domain that is partitioned and isolated in a computer network at the data link layer ( OSI layer 2).IEEE 802.1Q-2011, ''1.4 VLAN aims and benefits'' In this context, virtual refers to a ...

webinar Web conferencing is used as an umbrella term for various types of online conference, conferencing and collaborative services including webinars (web seminars), webcasts, and web meetings. Sometimes it may be used also in the more narrow sense of ...

systems, and telephone connections by

VOIP Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), also known as IP telephony, is a set of technologies used primarily for voice communication sessions over Internet Protocol (IP) networks, such as the Internet. VoIP enables voice calls to be transmitted as ...

. Due to the increase in small and home offices, web services and standard business software have been created to directly assist smaller businesses in standard business practice In many countries, a home office can be claimed as a tax deduction only if office space and supplies are not provided by a corporate office.

References

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Small Office Home Office Decentralization Office work Rooms Telecommuting

History

Professions

See also

References

Further reading

External links