Monday, May 5, 2003		Guest Speak

Smart offices will maximise business productivity
Lakshmi Narayan Rao

Lakshmi Narayan Rao, Assistant Director, Marketing OSS Value, Canon India Private Ltd.

There’s nothing jovial in Joy’s life. His life in the fast lane of the advertising world hits too many speed breakers everyday. It all starts at home - where even a quick breakfast is interspersed with business calls! He loves driving but driving isn’t a pleasure for him as there invariably a major traffic jam at each of the major intersections on the 15 kilometers drive he makes to his supposedly posh office in what he is told is a technology park.

Once there, he struggles to find a proper parking space and his woes continue as he enters his hi-tech office, which is spread across two floors. The office may be an architectural marvel, but for poor Joy, the spacious office space isn’t a boon, it’s more of a nightmare as it designed in a manner that one constantly has to move from department to department to complete single tasks. The other day he had to send the final proof of an advertisement to one of his clients and this routine task kept him busy till the wee hours of the morning. Only he wasn’t doing anything creative. Most of the time he was just running from his desktop to the printer and then to the photocopier.

Joy has no happiness in his life except for his name!

Taking a cue from the above instance and the other problems that people face at work, as a better understanding of that will help us identify the desired characteristics of an ideal Smart Office environment.

Today the four most immediate problems faced by users of office equipment are:

1) Too many machines: Technology is supposed to simplify our lives but this does not happen with multiple printers, scanners, photocopiers spread across the office on various floors. This multiplicity of equipment and duplicity of functionality also results in a significantly high level of investment.

2) Communication: Offices these days, typically, are not conducive to communication as people usually work in cubicles that naturally isolate them from each other. Communication and access to shared resources is an extremely important criteria in today’s business environment, especially for those businesses where the main competitive advantages of a company are its employees and the synergies created between them.

3) Lighting condition: Direct light from windows or lamps can interfere with vision. Reflections on a computer/video display can interfere with the ability to easily see characters on the screen and impact vision.

4) Fatigue: Described as a vague tiredness or feeling of low energy, lack of enthusiasm, or weakness, fatigue is caused by poor posture, chair support, not properly fitting on your workstation or arranging the materials and equipment on one’s desk. Fatigue can be demoralising and make one acquire the attitude of ‘who cares if I get my work done.’ Fatigue is a quite way of making one care less and less about one’s job and may even make one feel frustrated.

A smart office takes care of all these problems with technology as the key enabler to simplify lives. Some of the basic characteristics of today’s smart office are:

1. The need to staying connected without being in the office: No longer is a forgotten file a career threatening problem, as employees are now able to access, download, print and share documents from wherever they are.

2. Optimum utilisation of office space: Given that space is becoming a rare commodity and is more often then not at a premium. Sleek and modern multifunctional devices that consolidate and perform multiple functionalities are set to increasingly replace large single functionality offices devices.

3. Technology plays the dual role of a lifestyle enabler and knowledge conduit: Individual will now have access to digital imaging tools that are relevant to both home and office environments. With the advent of photo direct printers, mobile printers, and networked AIO digital imaging equipment, the computer will become obsolete and professionals will be able to access their documents from stand alone devices without necessarily using a computer.

In today’s uncertain business world one thing is certain. Technology is set to change office layouts and the way people work. Computers will get smaller; monitors will get thinner and cellphones and handsets will further reduce dependence on personal secretaries. As we go forward, offices will get more and more connected and there will be a need for integrating multifarious communication forms into one common conduit. Multifunctional devices will transform themselves into these communication conduits integrating printing, scanning, copying and fax functionalities but also e-mail, i-fax and virtual mailbox facilities.

In today’s smart offices, technology will provide individuals with better desktop control, easy hardware upgradeability and integrated document communication solutions. As technology continues to evolve in an endless cycle that will only accelerate and intensify, it is imperative that management thinking mirrors this change so that organisations effectively leverage off these technology development to maximise employee and business productivity.

In the future, as manual interaction between workgroups and customers decline, intelligent IT networks and communication hubs will become the information conduits for businesses and emerge as the critical link connecting organisations.