Revision:Offices

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1. Show how changes in technology or accessibility and information systems lead to changes in the location and character of offices?
2. On different scales why office decentralisation.
3. Examine with examples some of the economic and environmental consequences for the CBD of decentralisation of commercial activities that has occurred in most developed countries.

• Technology is in a constant evolutionary state, and is the key to the success and many of the failings in business today. This is best illustrated by offices, which handle information as opposed to goods or products.

• offices once required central location – historical inertia. Physical limitation due to exchange of information physically with central and inner city industry. Now this need removed – telephone networks and the rise of the internet mean info processing functions is not now an important locational factor. It is estimated that 20% of office workers spend one day a week working at home, and many others spending more. This has allowed businesses to relocate in areas without the inherent disadvantages of CBD locations, the foremost being high rents and congestion.

• However technology has not only changed communications in the office world but also the way information is processed. Information would be stored on papers and kept in large cabinets in the 18th and 19th century clerk offices. Now computers are used. This means that the layout and design is inappropriate. Redesign of buildings in the CBD is often highly expensive. This was the case for Refuge Assurance. The company was originally based in Manchester CBD, however as the company upgraded to completely integrated IT system they realised the building had no ducts for the much needed cabling. To remedy this central building would have been highly expensive and would cause months of disruption. Hence this with other factors pushed for a relocation to a purpose built building. The move was to offices in Wilmslow, 12 miles south of Manchester CBD. Here the building had been designed with future IT in mind and will be suitable for nearly all conceived IT advances.

• Office location and character has also been influenced indirectly by advances in technology. Effective transport routes to offices are crucial to successful business. Technology has made the car a cheap and an effective transport method that has allowed it to become growingly more popular than public transport. On average 1.07 million people enter London between 7:00 and 10:00 everyday this year and this figure is estimated to increase by five percent by next year. This scale of private transport converging on an area even the size of London with its dense road network results in very heavy congestion. Car ownership is also on the increase- in 1996 car ownership was around 40 cars per 100 population and by 2016 this figure is set to increase by 38% to 52 cars per 100 population. This makes it difficult for an office work force increasingly using private transport to actually get to their offices. Hence office relocation to more accessible areas is becoming a more desired option. These locations area divided into two groups. Firstly locations where technology has allowed better accessibility and secondly areas of rurality. The London Docklands can be seen as an area of low accessibility due to its central location and so would be expected to suffer from congestion. However in the late 1970s and early 1980s an inner city revitalisation scheme commenced to deal with the past levels of deindustrialisation. Here it was intended to attract multiple office relocations, however the area required huge infrastructural improvements to be a realistic option to many companies. The main improvement was the creation of the Docklands Light Railway, an eleven station extension to Becton with a target capacity of 12,000 passengers an hour between the Bank and the Isle of Dogs. This transport system cost £400 million, but was made possible through technological advances, especially in the construction of the system. As a result the area received vast numbers of relocations, including many national newspapers to Wapping (Telegraph, Guardian, Mail and the Financial Times) and seven major companies relocated from the financial sector (most notably Littlejohn Fraser, Morgan Stanley International and American Express).

• Rural locations are a more popular option now due to huge increase of accessibility through motorway connections, rail and now more so through air travel. This was an important factor in Birmingham, where the offices located in the CBD were found to be increasingly inaccessible. Three main business parks –Birmingham Business Park, Monkspath Business Park and a development near Merry Hill, have all been set up to provided alternative locations other than central business district locations. All theses sites have access to a motorway, whether it be the M6 or the M42.

• This was also an important factor in Refuge Assurance’s move. Their new location has a rail link to London and access to an airport.

• Now offices have become computerised the value of the internal contents has greatly increased. Hence security is now a more important issue. Modern security involves large defendable areas around each office complex which allow a good sweeping view for security cameras. This security requirement favours the location of offices in rural areas as the room here is available. Smith Kline Beacham now have a research and office facility located just outside of Tonbridge, which has a copious area of land to form a defendable perimeter. This was an important factor in their location here as any research carried out here is highly valuable.

• Hence the is a trend of decentralisation of offices due to the constant movement of technology. However certain aspects of central locations will remain important to many businesses, mainly being the prestige of being located in an internationally well known city and also the traditional desire and often need for actual contact with those of other companies. Also many see the word of mouth and social converse allowed by city locations as a far more instantaneous method of finding information concerning the business world.

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