Generation Y and the Workplace Annual Report 2010 - Haworth

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How technology is transforming work
Enter any workplace today and you will find
technology at the core of its operations. Whether
it’s an office or industrial environment - wireless
networking, automation, instant messaging and
virtual meetings are all playing a fundamental
role in transforming how business is conducted
globally. Moving forward, technologies will create
a faster support infrastructure, more flexible
workplaces that enable businesses to meet
the evolving demands from their customers.
Workplaces have undergone dramatic changes
during the last number of decades as society
makes the transition from an industrial age
to a knowledge age. In the wake of these
transformations, new work styles, locations and
patterns are underpinning the changes being
experienced in the workplace today. This is giving
rise to a better connected, more competitive
and increasingly complex work environment
including key features like the emerging trend
of knowledge work; the changing demand for
flexible employment contracts giving rise to leaner
organisations; and, the increased number of
mobile workers.
Figure 46: The Smart Workplace 2030 – Johnson Controls © 2009
Global WorkPlace Innovation
Technology is the most important factor
influencing and enabling the scale of change
within workplaces even today. As a result of the
exponential technological developments, we are
witnessing unprecedented and irreversible changes
in our society. These changes are affecting the
way we work and live, influencing our strategic
business decision and direction of the workplace.
Research analysts at Gartner 59 identify ten
technologies they believe will be of strategic
importance. Virtualization. Virtualization to
eliminate duplicate copies of data on the real
storage devices while maintaining the illusion
to the accessing systems that the files are
as originally stored (data deduplication) can
significantly decrease the cost of storage devices
and media to hold information.
Cloud Computing - Cloud computing is a
style of computing that characterizes a model in
which providers deliver a variety of IT-enabled
capabilities to consumers.
Servers - Beyond Blades -This evolution
will simplify the provisioning of capacity to meet
growing needs. The organization tracks the
various resource types, for example, memory,
separately and replenishes only the type that is in
short supply.
Web-Oriented Architectures - The Internet
is arguably the best example of an agile,
interoperable and scalable service-oriented
environment in existence.
EnterpriseMashups - Through 2010, the
enterprise mashup product environment will
experience significant flux and consolidation,
and application architects and IT leaders should
investigate this growing space for the significant
and transformational potential it may offer their
enterprises.
Specialized Systems - Heterogeneous systems
are an emerging trend in high-performance
computing to address the requirements of the
most demanding workloads, and this approach
will eventually reach the general-purpose
computing market.
Copyright © 2010, Johnson Controls. Confidential. All Rights Reserved.
Intellectual Property Johnson Controls, Haworth and iDEA.
Social Software and Social Networking
Organizations should consider adding a social
dimension to a conventional Web site or
application and should adopt a social platform
sooner, rather than later.
Unified Communications - This change is
driven by increases in the capability of application
servers and the general shift of communications
applications to common off-the-shelf server and
operating systems.
Business Intelligence - Business Intelligence
(BI) can have a direct positive impact on a company’s
business performance, dramatically improving
its ability to accomplish its mission by making
smarter decisions at every level of the business from
corporate strategy to operational processes.
Green IT - Shifting to more efficient products
and approaches can allow for more equipment
to fit within an energy footprint, or to fit into a
previously filled center.
Despite the transforming potential of technology,
attitudes and mindsets are much slower to
change. Supporting systems, structures, business
processes, and new ways of working and thinking
need to be put in place to realise truly radical
workplace transformation.
Source http://www.gartner.com/it/page.
jsp?id=777212
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