INTRODUCTION The office has existed in one form or another throughout history as an administrative adjunct to the centralised power

of the state. The Palazzo Uffizi in Florence of the Medici or the Bank of England are notable examples. The first commercial offices appeared in the northern industrial cities of the United States in the late nineteenth Century. With the invention of the telegraph and telephone, offices could be situated away from the home or factory and control could be retained over production and distribution to distant markets. New technologies such as electric lighting, the typewriter and the use of calculating machines allowed large amounts of information to be accumulated and processed faster and more efficiently than before. The concentration of wealth in the new corporations required an ever-greater proportion of an increasingly literate population to work in the white collar factories. In Chicago, the mid-western hub of the American rail network, technologies such as the steel frame and elevator enabled office buildings to be constructed higher than previously possible to

generate maximum income from the site. These were the first speculative office buildings and generally followed the traditional layout of separate rooms opening into corridors. The floor plan would then be stacked to generate the greatest income from the site this profit-driven logic came to define the skylines of Chicago and New York by the early twentieth century. The American architect Louis Sullivan was a pioneer in his study of the formal articulation of the tall commercial building or skyscraper; his delicate naturalist ornamentation and bold forms expressed his own mystical vision of a new and vital democracy based on industrialisation.

A COMPARISON OF ANCIENT AND MODERN OFFICE Over a period of time, the difference between traditional office and modern office has been narrowed down to 'paper book office' and ' paperless office'. To simply state it, traditional office depends on records and files for documentation, manual

operations in respect of banking, customer service and other commercial activities. The modern office on the other hand is entirely IT savvy and electronically driven appliances work hand in hand with office workers. Records are digitally driven and the communication is precisely and accurately handled with less human energy and errors as well. Interestingly, yesterday's modern office too becomes today's traditional office. We may see the progress of modernising office management over a period of time, in various dimensions. 1. Work timings: Specific work timings, were modern for some time as compared to limitless work hours practiced in different situations. Now, specific work timing is a traditional practice as compared to modern 'flex' timings, throughout the 24 hours of the day and seven days of the week. Tomorrow, partly today

even, home offices would be the modern scenario as compared to staff going to an office space and working today. 2. Records: Many of the records connected with commercial activities have been converted today to electronic documents. This space saving and accurate methodology being modern today, it might become obsolete, if not traditional one day, when unique identification methodologies are developed and the entire recording activities are arranged nation wide, if not done globally as a central recording system. Commercial organisations have already started following this practice. Every branch unit of an organisation goes through its information from the centrally maintained records of the organisation, held somewhere in the Globe. 3. Human resources: We can see this change in every dimension of the office human resource management. Stenographers or Private Secretaries are found in the traditional office organisation. Today's receptionist of a City Office in India, sits at New York, USA, to respond to customer queries, or vice verse. 90% of the interaction with the customer is done by the sweet recorded

message customised for the situation. Most of the Office chores are mechanised. 4. Money transactions: Cash payments and receipts are typical activities of a traditional office. Credit cards came in between with manual transactions for debit and credit of payments at the merchant's office. Now, there is momentary account adjustments as the customer swipes his card in the electronically connected equipment, which encompasses the bank accounts of both the payer and receiver in every commercial transaction. If today's modern office believes in on-line transactions, tomorrow still some more methods would take their place as modern. 5. Office space: Commercial, serviced or home office, today's modern office has bays and cubicles for work stations, as against tables, chairs, telephones and dustbins of yesterday's traditional office. Even these types of today's modern office will become traditional, when offices are run only with a comprehensive equipment of a 'bulky' laptop or a smart PDA. Even today, the modern office is run by these electronic equipments with

teleconferencing is held among office leaders, who have not met at all in their life. 6. Office equipments: Traditional Offices were earlier equipped with tables, chairs, typewriters, filing cabinets, steel cup boards, dust bins, punching machines and a blotting pad for the staff to comfortably sit and write. Later, comptometers, calculators, electronic typewriters, telephones and teleprinters, fax machines, photocopiers, shredding machines, staplers, vacuum cleaners, etc came in. Starting from Fans over the working staff, the climate conditioning was improved in terms of room air conditioners to central air conditioning. The offices today are realistic only with work stations with computer aided transaction equipments, whether it be a lap top or card readers and what not. Precisely, tradition gains its name, when a new formula over rules the activity with advancement in civilization and science.

THE MODERN OFFICE AND OFFCIE AUTOMATION Also known as an e-office, an electronic office is a term that refers to any office environment that makes significant use of computer technology to operate. The term was first coined during the middle of the 20th century and began to come into common use during the decade of the 1980s as more office environments dispensed with manual methods and began to rely more heavily on a combination of desktop computers, mainframes, and servers to manage a number of job-related tasks. Today, an electronic office is more commonly equated with the virtual office, which involves the use of wireless technology to allow people to work from virtually anywhere with the right type of laptop or notebook and a reliable wireless connection. One of the primary benefits of an electronic office is the ability to rely less on hard copy documents to manage different business tasks. For example, an accounting or billing professional would be able to significantly decrease the use of traditional hard copy accounting books by utilizing accounting software to bill orders, create invoices, and even to post payments received on

outstanding invoices. In like manner, a salesperson can benefit from the use of an electronic office by utilizing a sales database rather than maintaining paper files on each prospect and customer. Even many clerical tasks such as writing letters or preparing presentations can now be done electronically, further reducing paper consumption while also making it easier to keep data organized and easy to retrieve. Along with reducing the consumption of paper associated with performing various tasks, an electronic office environment also provides a higher level of security. Users can password protect various documents, limit access to databases with passcodes, and even lock access to files placed into some remote data storage solution by encrypting the access in some manner. While not foolproof, this level of security is usually considered an

improvement over the use of locked filing cabinets, safes, and vaults that were commonly employed before the advent of the desktop computer. While the electronic office has not eliminated the use of paper in a business environment, responsible use of software programs

and company networks does greatly reduce the need of maintaining hard copy documents. Since the documents can be printed when and as necessary, the space required to set up an electronic office is significantly smaller, an advantage that is particularly important when space is at a premium. In some industries, use of the virtual office has made it possible to allow employees to work remotely rather than at a central location, a benefit that can greatly reduce operational costs. Office automation refers to the varied computer machinery and software used to digitally create, collect, store, manipulate, and relay office information needed for accomplishing basic tasks and goals. Raw data storage, electronic transfer, and the

management of electronic business information comprise the basic activities of an office automation system. The history of modern office automation began with the typewriter and the copy machine, which mechanized previously manual tasks. Today, however, office automation is increasingly understood as a term that refers not just to the mechanization of tasks but to the conversion of information to electronic form as

well. The advent of the personal computer revolutionized office automation, and today, popular operating systems and user interfaces dominate office computer systems. This revolution has been so complete, and has infiltrated so many areas of business, that almost all businesses use at least one commercial computer business application in the course of daily activity. Even the smallest companies commonly utilize computer technology to maintain financial records, inventory information, payroll records, and other pertinent business information. "Workplace technology that started as handy (but still optional) business tools in the 1980s evolved into a high-priority requirement in the 1990s," summarized Stanley Zarowin in Journal of Accountancy. "As we enter the new millennium, it has taken another quantum leap, going from a priority to a prerequisite for doing business."