Blog: We live in a supercity by Sarah-Jane Osborne, Claremont Group Interiors6th November 2012

It’s been quite a few weeks for Bristol - earmarked as a supercity of the future in HSBC’s Growing British Business Report, allocated more than £11m from the government’s £114m Urban Broadband Fund and recognised as a finalist in the European Green Capital awards. Bristol’s economy is pushing ahead, creating the right conditions for investment, jobs and real growth.

In particular, it’s the broadband which stands to have the most positive impact. The arrival of ultrafast broadband and an increase in WiFi across the city will change the way that Bristol businesses work and attract new businesses into our fold, too.

It’s Bristol’s rich vein of creative media and digital businesses, which will really feel the value first, giving them the means to compete with world-class cities such as Singapore and Tokyo. Of course, it won’t be long until these changes impact everyone, prompting businesses to take a closer look at how their operations can really benefit from superfast broadband. Creating opportunities to expand into new markets, improving customer communications, bringing operating costs down and providing greater scope for flexible working – technology is at the heart of economic growth.

Technology has been impacting on the way we design and use space for decades and for a business like ours it is the relationship between people, space and technology that occupies our working lives. It’s no great stretch of the imagination to accept that with the birth of a digital economy, will come profound changes to the way businesses use office space.

In the short term, the focus will be on the roll-out, but in the years that follow it will be on the legacy - the business success stories it’s enabled, the improvements to business processes it’s brought about and the new ways that businesses occupy and use space. The HSBC Growing British Business Report talks about Bristol as the hub for the industrial revolution. A grand and inspiring statement you might say, but it’s certainly true that Bristol is a hotbed for change. Not just in terms of appetite, but investment in infrastructure and opportunity too. I think we’re already living in a supercity.

About the author

Sarah-Jane Osborne has more than 20 years’ experience within the commercial interior design sector, 18 years of which have been spent working in Claremont Group Interiors’ Bristol office.
She has specific expertise in understanding organisations, business drivers and goals, corporate culture and change and interpreting brand values into the interior environment. Additionally Sarah-Jane specialises in creating strategic environments for professional service firms and in colour theory.

Not one for standing still, Sarah-Jane has a love of all things dance. Sarah-Jane has been learning Amercian Tap Dancing, Ballet, Contemporary, Jazz, Latin and Ballroom dancing for the past three years. She’s also a former softball women’s champion, playing in the UK nationals and a British Softball association umpire.

 www.claremontgi.com