[Smart Work Revolution] Traditional House Office with Views of Rice Fields and Farms When You Open the Window

Smart Work Overseas Cases

Inside the Kamiyama Satellite Office Complex in Japan (Photo by Wirelesswire.jp, KOTRA)

[Asia Economy Reporter Lim Hye-seon] Kamiyama Town in Tokushima Prefecture, Japan, with a population of about 5,300, was on the brink of disappearance due to population decline caused by low birth rates and aging. Kamiyama launched a satellite office project by remodeling old traditional houses and commercial facilities to provide affordable office spaces. Under the slogan "Cutting-edge work in remodeled traditional houses where great nature unfolds as soon as you open the window," the area has attracted 16 headquarters and satellite offices of technology companies. As a result, 136 households and 221 people working for these companies relocated, revitalizing the town. Among them is the satellite office of Sansan, a leading company in cloud business card management solutions. Nearby is the satellite office of Engawa, a system development company. The headquarters and satellite offices maintain the same structure and network environment, focusing on employees' working conditions.

In Eniwa City, Hokkaido's Doo region, there is a satellite office (regional base office) of the dining company Apure in the ranch Eco-Rin Village. It is a space equipped with information and communication technology (ICT) environments comparable to those in large cities. Employees are highly satisfied as they can work freely in nature without the pain of rush hour commuting. In Shiojiri City, Nagano Prefecture, an old inn in Otaki Village was converted into a satellite office, and in Fujimi Town, unused school facilities were turned into satellite offices. Shiojiri City achieved an economic ripple effect of 450 million yen through this. IT company Fujitsu reduced its Tokyo headquarters office to half its size and established 250 satellite offices.

Japan's experiments with working environments have been actively conducted as the government's regional revitalization policies and IT companies' efforts to decentralize bases have coincided. The government allocated and actively supported an annual budget of about 1 trillion yen for regional revitalization. In the United States, companies using the "hub and spoke" model are increasing. Amazon has established regional base offices in six cities, including Dallas, Detroit, and Phoenix. Google also has 20% of its total employees working at regional base offices.

The forced expansion of telecommuting and remote work after COVID-19 is creating new opportunities. Companies expect to achieve social goals such as balanced regional development, stabilization of soaring real estate prices, and reduction of carbon emissions by promoting distributed smart urbanization through the activation of satellite offices and implementing digital-based untact cities supporting non-face-to-face industries.

Experts agree that the government should provide policy support such as tax benefits and infrastructure provision to expand regional base offices. They emphasize that fostering non-face-to-face industries through policy support for key infrastructure like networks and data centers should be pursued simultaneously as an opportunity for balanced regional development. A bill supporting non-face-to-face industries has also been proposed in the National Assembly. Representative Park Dae-chul of the People Power Party has introduced a bill aimed at promoting the development of non-face-to-face industries to facilitate the transition to a digital economy and secure the competitiveness of the country's overall industry through this.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.