Orange Revolution

By 2010, people began to think about changing the traditional work structure. Good quality of life was a priority that made people move to suburbs. Initiatives by the government to deter people from using cars, by providing better public transport, coupled with technological advancement, led to the development of cluster offices near residential areas. Ultimately, cluster cities were developed that were almost self sufficient, congestion free and had new modes of transport.

2010 - 2015

With advancement in communication technologies, facilities such as video conferencing and web conferencing became more user friendly, reliable and cheaper. This led to people using these technologies extensively, both for business and personal purposes.

Companies started to realize that such advancement in technology could lead to a completely different and more efficient work structure. Companies would not need to have massive headquarters; this led to a new concept of decentralized work. Companies preferred to concentrate on their core competencies and outsource all support activities to specialized providers. Further research was being done in order to understand as to how the organizational structure could be changed and made more flexible and efficient in the future. At the same time, car sales were increasing as people continued to consider private cars as the most convenient mode of transport. Congestion and pollution within the cities increased, causing more and more people to move to suburban areas for a better quality of life. The government also encouraged more suburban development in order to ease the stress on civic infrastructure. This shift in preference of residential area made people travel longer distances to reach their business activity centres. To minimize traffic congestion and reduce environmental impact, the government implemented pay as you drive policy wherein tax was charged from car owners according to the distance travelled. Tax rates were based on parameters such as time, distance, location, type of car, etc. This increased the tax burden on individuals and companies alike.

2015 - 2025

This was a period of radical changes in the work environment. The developments in technology and increasing congestion prompted the development of cluster offices. Offices got clustered in small regions near the residential areas. Highways and other major roads linked residential areas to office areas and enabled easy access to offices. Most small and medium size companies moved to these cluster offices. Therefore, instead of having one massive central office, the companies had smaller offices but at multiple locations. However, large organizations were not yet ready to do this due to the sheer scale of operations, which made decentralization a difficult choice. Smart offices were becoming very common. In these offices, services such as communications, conferencing, etc. were provided by the smart office owner and work desk or meeting rooms were hired by the hour. Rapid advancement in ICT provided better communication channels and network, which encouraged working from home. However, working from home had its own challenges and therefore was still not a viable option for many companies.

The cluster offices eased the congestion problem to a little extent as then people instead of travelling to different places, travelled to one common area. Supplemented by the development of cheap and high quality public transport facilities to these areas, more people avoided travelling to office by private cars. Rising public awareness regarding congestion and environment was also causing companies to encourage the use of public transport and many companies made this as an one of the objectives of Corporate social responsibility. The companies could buy subsidized travel allowance packages, the price of which depended upon the number of employees. Those employees who did not have access to public transport were encouraged to use car pools. In hindsight, companies did not have a choice but to discourage use of cars, as a new government ruling made it more costly for companies to buy cars. Therefore the days of shelling out new cars to employees had come to an end.

2025 - 2040

The change in the way in which corporations were set up, which had started around 2010, had led to a whole new way of living in and around the cities. The decentralization of offices and the move to a clustered set up led to a new transformation process. The concept of cluster cities became common. These were small cities with residential, commercial, farming and market areas and were almost self sufficient in food and other services. The communication infrastructure enabled strong linkages with other clusters. Since the roads had become very congested, more people started living in such cluster cities in order to reduce the travel distance and time. Many large organizations also began to set up smaller offices in these cluster cities. Rapid advancement in ICT had eventually made large organizations more flexible in their setup.

The convenience in transportation due to cluster cities and demand for a higher quality of life led to an influx of two working parent families. Since the travel time was reduced, more women could take up work and still spend time at home for house work. The parents could work on part time or full time basis depending upon their convenience. Due to the increasing requirements for various amenities in cluster cities, job availability increased. This also led to an emergence of many small cooperative banks for providing funding opportunities.

As travelling distances became shorter due to cluster cities and oil got scarcer, new ways of personal transportation such as Segway PUMA and Toyota Winglet were taking off rapidly. These modes of transport were very economical, greener and required less space, but most importantly they saved travelling time as they greatly helped reduce congestion within the cities. Roads within the cities became almost congestion free due to the new transportation systems.