Broadband bedrock
The potential popularity of the new office concepts is largely based on the ubiquity of cheap broadband connections. Even during the lengthy recession, Japanese companies continued to replace older districts with shiny new corporate centres, so the computing and communication infrastructure is continually being upgraded.
At home, nearly 70 percent of Japanese Internet users have broadband connections. A 40Mbps line in Japan costs about the same as a 1.5mbps line in the United States.
IP telephony also got a boost last year, when the Japanese government began to issue licences for the service. Dialling "050" before a phone number allows a user of a VoIP-enabled phone to conduct a call over IP wires rather than over regular lines. Roughly 70 percent of NEC's telecommunications equipment sales involve traditional PBX switches, but VoIP equipment, like the Univerge SV7000 switch, could account for half of sales in three years, Ichii said.
Besides VoIP equipment, the company is pushing laptops, document scanners and middleware that can be sold as a package.
For instance, NEC is selling a desktop interface called the UnifiedStar Excellent, which features windows for calendars, videoconferencing, messaging and other functions. Up to eight parties can videoconference simultaneously on the system, while 50 others can participate in listen-only mode. A large import-export company recently adopted the system.
Another product coming this month -- which combines NEC switches and NTT DoCoMo handsets -- will make it easier to switch from using third-generation, or 3G, channels on a handset to an integrated Wi-Fi connection, which will cut phone bills. Global Positioning System modules will also allow dispatchers to track field representatives.
The company is also developing security-themed products for the office of the future, such as more accurate fingerprint sensors. One application, a facial recognition and authentication system called NeoFace, automatically locks down a computer (equipped with a video camera) when the user gets up from his or her desk. It won't log on until the person sits down again. If an interloper sits at the desk or tries to log on to the computer, an alarm sounds and the camera snaps a picture of the person, too.
While most NEC customers are in Japan, the company reorganised its North American divisions in April to boost its overseas presence.
Numbers to back it up
On statistical grounds, the organisational ideas embodied in the centre seem to work. Paper costs are 20 percent lower than those of other NEC groups of comparable size, thanks to fewer printers and copiers, and greater reliance on collaboration software.
Conference room time, measured by the number of hours employees reserve, is down 70 percent, while the average length of meetings has dropped 20 percent. Travel expenses are down 15 percent, in part because of videoconferencing.
Besides the direct cost savings, reducing travel likely cuts down on carbon dioxide emissions, an overall goal for many companies in environmentally sensitive Japan.
Another big cost savings comes in office space. Although 500 employees work in the centre, there is only desk space for 400 of them. The desk space, often a section of a larger table, comes on a first come, first served basis, and no one has an assigned, permanent desk.
"A 30 percent office space savings -- that is big in Tokyo," said Tomoaki Ikezawa, assistant manager of the international sales department in the second enterprise communications solution division.
The deskless 20 percent aren't tapping in from their kitchen, he added. The work-at-home concept is still not big in Japan. Instead, the lack of space is prompting sales representatives to visit clients more often, he said.
Sun has deployed a similar strategy. Employees at Sun put their personal possessions in a locker; NEC gives its employees a bag. And as at Sun, Ikezawa acknowledged, some employees do try to outsmart the system and maintain control over a piece of real estate by leaving equipment in a spot overnight.
