Making the Home Office Work

First, think about where you can work. Most people's houses aren't designed for office space. The last thing you want to do is to have to buy a bigger house to fit your office in when you are just about to find out if your bright idea makes business sense. Many people end up working in their dining room, bedroom or kitchen. This is a little awkward to say the least. It is difficult to hold meetings in a room filled with laundry or children. It is, however, not impossible.

Others convert garages, install sheds or other more elaborate buildings at the end of their gardens. A consultant I spoke to had converted his garage into a high-tech office complete with video-editing suite and sofas - 'Many of my customers are from big organizations. They like coming out here, sitting on the sofa and making themselves comfortable, they feel more relaxed in a different environment. There is no point in me trying to recreate the environment they are used to - it is simply too expensive.' So, when you are planning your office, do not try to turn your house into a corporate headquarters (even though on paper that is what it actually is). Be flexible and realistic.

In practice, the first rule of creating your own home office is to confine yourself. Decide on where you will work and tell everyone else in the house. Do not spread yourself round the house. If you do, you will soon find that children and pets have little respect for important pieces of paper. Other key factors are:

• Phone lines. It is useful, but not essential, to have a phone line which is dedicated to business use. This allows you to keep track of how much you are spending on business calls and may go some way to ensuring that passing adolescents or toddlers don't answer important calls with an indecipherable noise. An answer phone is now obligatory for virtually every business. You can't be at home all the time and an answer phone is a cheap and effective means of making sure you don't lose any business while you're out. Installing a new phone is comparatively easy - unless you want one right at the end of the garden. A dedicated fax line is also extremely useful and worth the investment.
  
  
• Furniture. The sky is the limit. But for a reasonable budget, you can find many second-hand bargains. The world is awash with ageing filing cabinets discarded by large companies on the advice of their interior designers. It is, however, not worth skimping on your desk and chair -your back will soon pay the cost.
  
  
• Filing space and shelves. Any business requires some sort of filing system. You need to make space so this can be done in an orderly way and so that important files are accessible.
  
  
• Using technology. The world's top business people have had a long love-hate relationship with the latest technology. Some simply can't get enough of the newest innovations. They pore through PC magazines, allow their eyes to glaze over at the very mention of an Apple Mac and constantly demand a larger budget to buy the latest version of their software package. Others remain skeptical - executive gizmos, they argue, aren't the route to increased profitability. Who needs IT when technology has yet to prove its commercial worth? And, they might add, what's wrong with the old-fashioned way?

To some extent skepticism is justified. Technology has not yet yielded the huge pay-offs promised. In the United States during the 1980s, $1 trillion was invested in Information Technology, innovations such as relational database technology, EIS, EDI and CAD. Amid the profusion of acronyms and the frenzied signing of corporate checks, it was easy for organizations to forget or overlook the purpose of the investment.

Technology, whether it be a new software package, a portable computer, enhanced hardware or a new IT system, should lead to greater efficiency and productivity. Certainly, technology can bring you more receptive and accurate information and communication systems, and they can become closer to consumers, markets and each other. On the factory floor technology leads to faster, less labor-intensive and more reliable production. But statistics and extensive research from throughout the world suggest that productivity gains have not yet materialized. General Electric vice-president Gary Reiner has startlingly observed: 'We have found that in many cases technology impedes productivity.'

IBM chief Lou Gerstener, leading the computer giant back into profitability, has mapped out the expectations of the market with typical forthrightness. 'Customers have become very skeptical of the constant flood of new information technology. Customers are saying - give us technology we can manage, that is easy to use, that evolves at a reasonable pace and, most of all, helps us to achieve measurable competitive advantage.'

Of course, those who aren't true believers, are not the best people to spread the technological faith to others in the organization. While primary school children can spot the difference between versions of Windows, chairmen of major corporations often find it difficult to sort out their modems from their mouse. But, in spite of suspicions and various pieces of research exposing the perils of technology, people in business can't simply opt out of the technological revolution. Opting out is the sure route to business failure.