Newspaper Page Text
January 31,1985/The MaroonTiger/Page 18
BUSINESS
The Decentralization of Business
By Veronica Green
Business Affairs Editor
From its infancy, businesses
were only absorbed in one large
office building located in the
center of a large city. Back then,
the mail was slow and everything
was uncertain. Suburban offices
looked forward to the arrival of
the telegraph and the telephone.
Today the telecom
munications systems and
economics has given business a
new lease on life and expansion.
Companies are moving many of
their divisions all over the coun
try. According to the New York
Times Commercial Real Estate
Report, it is not just a branch
sales office but the accounting
department, the data-processing
division, and the billing
operations that are being
separated to various areas in the
suburbs, smaller cities, and
countrysides. Several low rise
office complexes are sprouting
up in the middle of cornfields
across the country.
The growing expense of cen
tral city office space is cutting
into corporate profit. Modern
technological innovations, com
munications satellites, and com
puters make it possible for a
company's many divisions to talk
electronically between the
miles.
Consequentially, corporate
officials are now taking steps to
analyze operations and move
into the most compatible and
least expensive space. Two op
tions are normally considered,
the prestigious downtown
skyscrapers where the big
wheel executives meet face to
face to deal or an out of town
office site where behind the
scenes employees who sent out
the bills, and market new
products can work efficiently
and inexpensively.
The new era has brought forth
a new set of standards that real
estate developers have not had
to handle before. They must find
cheap areas to build low cost
buildings and build differently
downtown. Some companies are
not large enough to rent whole
floors in posh downtown
buildings but their executives
still need windows. Thus, it is no
accident that the architectural
shapes of new building designs
have facets and angles to please
all the tenants.
"Economic differentials
between downtown and boon-
docks can be very important to
growing businesses in a com
petitive atmosphere because
their downtown headquarters
may not have the space
necessary for efficient
operations, and none may be
available nearby.” In Midtown
Manhattan, rent per square foot
in a new building could cost $40
to $50. The same amount of
nnnnnnn
suburban Denver location.
"There is no distance bar that's
significant," said George
Sternlieb, director of the Center
for Urban Policy Research at
Rutgers University.”
Technology has made the
separation from the central
business district possible;
however, not all divisions can be
dispersed. Samuel M. Ehrenhalt,
a regional commissioner of the
Bureau of Labor Statistics says,
“The top guys who need to be in
touch with financial people,
advertising people, your cor
porate attorneys, management
consulting firms, bankers and
investment counselors,’" need
face-to-face contact that down
town complexes provide.
The 60's and the 70’s saw the
move of many companies from
the city. American Express diver
sified its location by splitting its
credit card processing center
from its centralized New York
location and moving 2000 jobs to
Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, and 2000
to Phoenix. Eastern Airlines
moved to locations in Miami;
Charlotte, N.C., and Wood-
bridge, N.J. Metropolitan Life
Insurance Company decen
tralized its operations by moving
30,000 jobs out of New York to
regional locales. As a result,
Metropolitan found it no longer
needed all of the 44 floor Head-
quarters building and was able to
rent out the top half of the tower.
Citibank was not to be left with
all its employees in its eye
catching Manhattan head
quarters. According to Susan
Weeks, a Citibank spokesperson,
1,500 jobs were moved to South
Dakota in 1980. Modern
technology allows for "one of
the machines in the complex to
slice open the incoming mail
(containing checks totalling $15
million a day in credit card
payments), while machines sort
the checks by Federal Reserve
district for faster processing.
Special computer-driven high
speed printers prepare 200,000
bills a day for mailing."
Denver bosts several cor
porate headquarters and
regional offices. Xerox, IBM,
Burroughs, Honeywell, and
Wang all have regional head
quarters in the Rocky Moun
tain suburbs. Even AT&T Infor
mation Systems has moved to
Denver.
The time factor has reduced
the price difference between the
city and its local suburbs. For
some though, the suburbs are
more convenient. There is less
congestion for quick and pai
nless contruction. Reduced land
costs are also a plus.
An urban planner and visiting
professor at Columbia Universi
ty, Robert Goodman forsees the
next step as companies "‘going
out of the country altogether.
Once you have electronic com
munication techniques you can
go any place in the world.”’
Climbing The Corporate Ladder
By Veronica Green
Business Affairs Editor
If you have high aspirations,
chart your course and bring your
hiking boots. Talk to people who
have traveled the path you are
about to take. It will save time
and help you avoid mistakes. Dr.
Natasha Josefowitz, author of
Paths To Power explains in her
book that people enjoy talking
about steps that led to their
subsequent corporate climb.
Paths To Power notes several key
factors to keep in mind.
Upon obtaining a position,
time will only show that master
ing your job is not difficult. After
a short period of time, it can even
seem boring. Request new and
challenging assignments.
Becoming involved in a variety of
tasks gives you an opportunity to
see the whole picture, how
everything fits together, and the
reason why. Be a team member.
Keep sight of the goal. The
objective is toward your next
promotion and position.
Simply doing an excellent job
in your position is not enough.
Your boss has to notice a star
employee's A-plus work and
industrious manner. It is impor
tant also to inform the boss of
any desires to move up.
Recognizing dead end
positions is an imperative skill.
No one is ever promoted from
these jobs. Dr. Josefowitz ex
plains that if this is your unfor
tunate mishap, "ask your boss
about making a lateral move, a
move to get you into a job that
does have potential for upward
movement."
Talk about your position in
terms of responsibilities. Many
women make the mistake of
speaking of their jobs in terms of
routinely performed tasks. Men
will more than likely relate to
their positions in a responsibility
sense.
"For many women admitting
that they are ambitious is almost
shameful. Ambition smacks of
competition, of manipulation, of
overtaking others and disregar
ding their feelings, of pushing
yourself up at the expense of
everyone else, of being ‘power
hungry.’” If this is a flawless
description of yourself, you will
not have it easy. It might help to
substitute the word opportunity
in place of ambition.
Opportunity to fulfill your
potential, to reach your goals, to
live in monetary comfort-will
allow “you to feel more
‘legitimate’ about going to your
boss and asking what your next
step should be."
Lastly, it is imperative that you
look and act like you are already
an executive. Eighty percent of
communications is nonverbal..
Your appearance must resemble
what a female manager or ex
ecutive should look like. Women
should dress conservatively, be
ing careful to “always be un
derstated, never flashy. Un
derplay hips and bosom, don’t
accentuate curves. Wear clothes
that allow you to cross your legs
comfortably. Your clothes don’t
have to be expensive, but they
must look it!” Fabric selection is
important. Cotten, linen, silk,
and wool are impressive. Pants
suits must be very classy.
However, if the secretaries wear
them then do not. Wear what the
other executives are showing.
Farrakhan: The Man . . .
(Continued from Page 17)
wanted to follow a doctrine that I
believed, at that time, preached
hatred. But later after question
ing and understanding the doc
trine, I became a Muslim
follower of Elijah Muhammad
and a member of the Nation of
Islam.”
Before becoming a Muslim,
Farrakhan gave up a promising
career as an entertainer. He
began playing the violin at the
age of 5 and was even one of the
first Blacks to appear on national
television. At 14 he played the
violin on the original "Ted Mack
Ameteur Hour” on ABC-
television. Gil Noble, an ex
ecutive with ABC, found recent
ly the original tape of Farrakhan
on the show. “I'm anxious to get
that tape in my possession,” he
laughingly said. When he speaks
of the violin, and his singing, the
love of music exudes from his
face.
"My whole life revolved
around my music — a violinist, as
a ballad singer, as a calypso
singer and dancer. Most who
watched my career felt that I
would become a very great
performer. And indeed, I believ-
p4
ed that I had that tremendous
promise.
"Becoming a Muslim affected
my life radically for I was always a
lover of Black people, but more a
lover of humanity with a focus on
Black people. When I became a
Muslim, my heart, soul, and
mind were focused on the plight,
the suffering of Black people,
(Continued on Page 23)
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