It started a few years ago, with American and Canadian VAs expanding their portfolio of services, to provide greater market differentiation and make better use of a wider range of skills than just PA, concierge, typing and general admin. Whereas many have always served specialist industries, such as the medical, legal and surveying professions, others began offering book keeping, procurement and marketing support.
A more recent development is admin outsourcing, focusing on supporting companies rather than individual professionals, and in the past few months we've seen VAs searching for "their niche". The latter has thrown up a few surprises, including PA support for the UK Romany Community and Virtual Funerals. For our part, we are launching an offering aimed at Adventure Travellers, covering motorcycle tours and other similar expeditions over 4 weeks in duration.... what this space for more details!
But, right now the VA community in the states are debating a name change. They are rightly concerned that the term "Virtual Assistant" is not doing anyone justice - after all, VAs do more than just "assist" people - and with the shift toward admin outsourcing across a wide range of business functions, it seems sensible to use a term that conveys this better, and that means something to the business community. So, hot off the press, here are few terms that are being kicked around... see what you think:
- Business Outsource Specialist
- Business Support Specialist
- Business Support Services
- Professional Business Support
- Business Concierge Service
- Office Support Specialist
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