Increasing Mobility

Description:

The dictionary definition is a good start.

Mobile

-adjective

1. Capable of moving or of being moved readily from place to place.
2. Tending to travel and relocate frequently.

Mobility

1. the quality of being mobile.
2. Sociology. the movement of people in a population, as from place to place, from job to job, or from one social class or level to another.

The world population is increasingly more mobile and is more capable and willing to move from one place to another, both temporarily and permanently. This has been driven by falling transportation prices - particularly airline travel - and the expansion of corporations globally. Technology is also a driving force as it becomes possible to remain in contact with employees almost anywhere on the globe. The use of laptop computers over desktop computers is becoming commonplace in order to facilitate the flexibility required for a mobile workforce. Workforce mobility is more prevalent in the developed than in the developing world.

Mobility can also refer to population migration. In the developing world the rural population is migrating towards to cities in order to find work, putting strain on resources and infrastructure.

Enablers:

• Advances in ground and air transportation. It allows people to travel around the world with safety, comfort and speed at a low cost.
• Advances in information and communication technology, especially wireless technology, which free people from restraints of their location - you can communicate from anywhere.
• The Globalization of Culture (or Cultural Globalization)
• Increasing international cooperation, which requires people to travel around the world for projects and research.
• Labour shortages
• Media Globalization
• The world's rapid urbanization and motorization.
• Virtual Integration

Inhibitors:

• Cultural barriers
• Disease - AIDS, influenza
• Economic restraints
• International conflict
• Language barriers
• National barriers - legislation, visa, immigration rules
• Political disputes

Paradigms:

• The world is small - you can move from any location to any other location within 24 hours.
• Though local knowledge is useful, local specialists are no longer needed as they can be flown in from anywhere.
• A large international workforce is no longer required. Having an office in Hong Kong may be sufficient to serve customers in other parts of Asia.
• Air transportation is now seen as commodity service rather than a luxury. A result of this is that airlines offer special services to frequent travelers, even going as far as to offer exclusive hidden levels in frequent flier programs for the top spenders – United’s Global Services class is an example.

Experts:

• Consultancy firms
• Multi-national organisations

Timing:

• On March 10, 1876, in Boston, Massachusetts, Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone.
• By the end of 1896,Henry Ford had sold his first car.
• Commercial air transportation began in 1914 when the St. Petersburg-Tampa Air Boat Line briefly carried the first scheduled paying passengers across Tampa Bay, Florida. Since that time, the airliner has revolutionized the way people travel, greatly reducing travel time between countries and bringing the world closer together.
• The boeing 747, the first of the wide-bodied commercial jets, had its inaugural flight in 1970. Four jet engines propel the plane, which reaches cruising speeds of 885 km/hr (550 mph), and later became the premier transcontinental jet in the world in the late 1970s and seated as many as 490 passengers.
• 1987 GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications) standard for Europe created based on a hybrid of FDMA (analogue) and TDMA (digital) technologies.
• Vehicle ownership per 1000 population by 1999
• Mobile phones have been the most successful electronic product of all time with over 264 million handsets shipped in 1999 a number that’s predicted to increase threefold by 2004
• On December 2004, new world car speed record is top speed at 395+ km/h.

Web Resources:

>>back>>