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Changing Working Practices and UK Office Furniture

AMA Research have published a Brand New Report on ‘Changing Working Practices and the Impact on UK Office Furniture 2000’. The report incorporates brand new and original research and is a comprehensive and up-to-date review of working practices in a range of office environments – representing a worthwhile investment and with over 60 pages giving excellent value for money.

Of Particular Interest:-

• Overall Industrial & Commercial Trends – Shift to service sector, increased globalisation, outsourcing trends, consolidation, automation of bureaucracy.
• Service Sector Developments – Key technical trends, homeworking, hotdesking, increased employee mobility, teamworking, organisational structures, flexible working practices, job security etc.
• Organisational Behaviour – Assessing changing work patterns in large corporate, open plan and cellular offices, small / medium sized companies, home offices and call centres.
• Changes by Job Type - How the roles of clerical staff, secretaries, sales people, junior and senior managers have changed and the influences on office furniture.
• Future Prospects – The most likely developments in working practices for the short-medium term future and how these changes will affect the market.
• Free Presentation on Office Furniture Distribution, where are we now? Current practice, trends, focus on dealers, and future prospects for the sector.

Changing working practices are one of the key influencing factors on how an organisation’s demand for office furniture is changing. Trends in this area are affected by a significant number of issues including technology developments, organisation type, size, location, culture etc.

This brand new report provides a brief overview of the market, followed by an examination of the developments in working practices which are likely to impact on the sector to a significant degree. The implications of these developments are discussed and future prospects are considered from a short, to longer term perspective.

Changing Working Practices covered include:-

Flexible Working – The majority of UK businesses now offer flexible working.

Teamworking – Smaller, more autonomous problem-solving teams are now more common.

Homeworking – Continued homeworking trends are stimulating the market.

Hot-desking – Increasingly influential on office furniture requirements.

The report is written by marketing professionals with substantial experience of the office furniture market specifically, and of changing working practices, technological developments and furniture products more generally.

Key areas of coverage in the report include:-

OVERALL INDUSTRIAL & COMMERCIAL DEVELOPMENTS

• How the UK economy is becoming more dependent on the service sector.
• Overall environmental impacts on the Office Furniture Market.
• Continuing trends to internationalisation and globalisation of businesses.
• The continuation of service sector consolidation.
• The increasing popularity of outsourcing of non-core activities.
• Reducing levels of bureaucracy due to automation of business processes.

OVERALL TRENDS IN THE SERVICE SECTOR

• The key technical developments in the sector and how they influence working practices.
• Trends in flexible working, including examination of homeworking, hot-desking, and other flexible working practices.
• New decision making processes – such as rapid deployment of teams, flatter organisational structures etc.

ORGANISATIONAL BEHAVIOUR

• The development of working practices in corporate businesses both in open plan and cellular / executive cellular offices.
• Changes in working practices in small and medium size enterprises.
• The continued rise in home office working and the increased demands placed on office furniture.
• The prospects of increasing demand for higher value products due to company support for home office furniture purchase.
• The developments in call centre management and the different demands from this sector.

WORKING PRACTICES BY JOB TYPE

• This section involves an investigation into a range of employees including clerical, secretarial, sales, junior and senior managers.
• The analysis of each job role in terms of key characteristics, tasks and how these roles have changed or developed in recent years and are expected to change in the future.

FUTURE PROSPECTS

• An indication of how working practices are likely to change over the short to medium term future.
• The likely impact of changing working practices on the Office Furniture Market.
• The report also includes a list of reference material for further investigation into this increasingly important topic.

The report contains over 60 pages of original research and comment on the impact of Changing Working Practices on the Office Furniture Market and provides an independent and incisive view into current and future developments and influences on the market.

ALSO INCLUDED :- FREE 25+ SLIDE, POWERPOINT PRESENTATION ON OFFICE FURNITURE DISTRIBUTION

• Where are we now? – Assessment of curent market size and structure, the major retailers and distributors
• Focus on dealers – size, structure, key influencers, data sources, factors influencing choice of supplier.
• Trends – The changing Office Furniture Market – Industrial revolution of the office, key developments.
• Future Prospects – Implications for Distribution, larger customers, growth in retail channels, E-commerce.

*Available on 3.5" disk only in Microsoft Powerpoint format

Changing Working Practices and UK Office Furniture

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Tables And Charts

SUMMARY

The Office Furniture market is currently performing reasonably well after a downturn in sales in 1999 and is expected to continue to achieve steady levels of growth in the short to medium term future. There are several key influences which affect the development of the market and the products supplied within the four main product sectors of desking, seating, storage and other products including changes in working practices, organisational behaviour and structures which are important influencers on the sector. In addition, changes in responsibilities, for a number of job descriptions and role functionality will also increasingly impact on the market's development.

It is estimated that around 60% of all organisations in the UK underwent some form of restructuring or change during 1999. The most common form of change at present are cost reduction programmes, although changes in systems to incorporate flexible working practices are also popular as a method of enhancing company efficiency and flexibility. According to some sources, an estimated 30% of companies undertook delayering and extension into new markets in 1999, particularly companies within the service industry. Other forms of change for companies include the increased use of contractors, closure of sites and outsourcing.

The effective planning and management of office systems, designs and structure is clearly becoming increasingly important as organisations change more substantially, and this planning process obviously impacts on office furniture specification to a significant degree. Increasingly, a wide range of employees are consulted and involved in the planning process, when organisations are considering any form of change in the office environment.

Changes in working practices are also encouraged by technological developments, particularly office automation. The tasks which were once the preserve of clerical or administration staff, are now increasingly being integrated into customer relationship management processes, aided by software developments. As job specifications change, so too does the demand placed on office furniture.

Trends towards home-working continue as employee, government and competitive pressures push the working practice to the fore. Hot-desking is facilitated by the increased employee mobility for many sectors of an organisation's workforce, which has led to maximisation of space available and the ability to expand in terms of employees, but not in terms of capital expenditure on new offices.

The concept of teamworking has changed over recent years, with a shift of emphasis towards rapidly deployed, autonomous groups working on specific projects for shorter periods with clear objectives. This working practice is likely to continue as organisations seek to achieve competitive advantage and need to be able to adapt to changing environments more rapidly.

Clearly all of these changes in working practices have implications on office design and office furniture requirements.

The structure of organisations has remained relatively static for around the last 80 years with the CEO at the head and the clerical staff at the lower levels. However, with the advent of the flat 'dot.com' companies and their ability to adapt much faster to changes in the environment than traditional structures, this realisation is encouraging the change to flatter hierarchies, which in turn is resulting in changing requirements in office design and furniture. The shift to vertical tasking is serving to enable some of this change, with managers undertaking susbtantial numbers of tasks previously passed out to other parties.

There are several potential areas for added value products and services in the office furniture market. Most of which are closely related to the understanding and tailoring of offerings depending on an organisation's structure, workforce and business processes. The ability to offer products which are tailored specifically for the client lies in the ability to fully understand the working practices of the business.

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