Before companies go willy nilly locating in foreign places to reduce their costs, they should ask whether they are located in the right place locally. By reducing the costs of commuting for their employees, companies can alter the family economics of their employees. One way that companies can alter the economics of the credit crunch is to think about helping their employees ride the credit storm. This does nothing to alter the physical costs of commuting and the wasted energy of driving to and from work.
There are a growing number of technologies that firms can now use that would allow employees to work from their homes or from places closer to home. We have seen how the Nintendo Wii allows a child to manipulate an image on a screen by moving an controller up and down. It would seem that there is now technology sufficient to allow people to carry out actions robotically even though they might not be located in the work place. For example, a person could move things in a central location even though they are located remotely. By visually be able to see things electronically at a distance they can set in motion processes that are controlled at a distance. The economics of this is improving steadily.
