We recently asked our customer —small to medium-sized business owners across the U.S.— how their businesses operate. This survey reveals a continuing shift from the traditional on-site centralized work force to a distributed virtual office model.

Here are the complete results:

1. How much time do your employees spend conducting business away from the office?

2. When receiving or making business calls while not in the office, do you try to give the impression to your clients that you are at your office?

3. Describe your office environment

4. For the year 2010, do you plan to expand your business?

5. If you plan to expand your business, what will be the working environment for new employees?

These results illustrate how small business owners are adapting to current economic conditions. For example, only 15% of respondents report having all employees work form a single location, while the majority—a whopping 57%—work from a virtual office.

Running a business under a virtual office model reduces office-related rental expenses and allows companies to expand their talent pool beyond a limited geographical area. In other words, the virtual office model provides a win-win solution for businesses.

As more companies sharpen their competitive edge by applying the virtual office model, it’s crucial for businesses to adopt a phone system designed for the modern and mobile business environment. This is where RingCentral shines.

“RingCentral facilitates the seamless integration of distributed employees into a single business phone system regardless of the employee’s choice of phones—mobile or fixed line,” says Vlad Shmunis, CEO of RingCentral. “The best part is that businesses do not need to spend a single dollar in capital expenditure.”

RingCentral conducted this study from October 16 to November 11, 2009. More than 300 customers responded to this online survey.