London business in 2020?

That's according to extensive research by lobby group, the Confederation of British Industry.

In response to the economic downturn, the CBI set itself the task of looking at what actions firms should be taking in the evolving financial landscape.

It put together 10 business leaders, including Oracle senior vice president David Callaghan, Serco Institute executive director Gary Sturgess and Bupa's CEO Ray King, in a room to discuss issues in business over the next decade.

Their ideas were then rolled out to workshops containing 500 regional firms and 50 trade associations before a final report called the Shape Of Business was drafted.

The result is what CBI's head of innovation and enterprise Tim Bradshaw described as "the best received thing the CBI has done for years".

One of the key issues tackled was ways of raising finance, with the result being big firms effectively becoming banks.

Tim said: "Companies want to reduce reliance on debt. We've seen that and it will carry on.

"So they look for other means of finance offerings and one thing companies - both big and small - were talking about was supply chain financing - large companies acting as banks for smaller ones.

"We don't know the details of how it will work - perhaps it will be a project for later in the year - but over the last few years I've heard of larger companies expecting smaller firms to do research and development for them.

"In the past, the smaller company would have got venture capitalists or banks to finance the R&D but, in the future, it will be a large company going to them telling them what they need and providing the finance for that."

As for employees, companies will be more proactive in their approach to managing talent, as well as being more flexible.

Tim said: "Flexibility will be a big watchword. I know it's already happening at CBI and I'm sure it is at other businesses.

"The scene will be someone goes to their boss and says 'I've done well for the last few years and now I want to go snowboarding for a few months'.

"Before the boss might not have wanted employees disappearing for months but it will become more acceptable.

"That won't be the case in all sectors. In some it will be impractical but, in others, managers will see the benefit of allowing staff to do this sort of thing."

The issue of an ageing population will also come to the fore with firms looking out how to deal with the staffing issues.

Tim said: "Robots are already used in areas such as car manufacturing but many see them taking a role in High Street shops.

"That is, however, looking to the end of the 10-year timeframe.

"One of the more immediate things is with a large number of people retiring, looking at what firms can do to get them back into their organisations.

"Maybe bring them back as experts for two to three days a week. Companies talk a lot about apprenticeships, which were usually focused on the young.

"Here we had companies saying apprenticeships for middle managers learning from those retiring."

Technological advances were also heavily discussed in the report.

The research found companies are also embracing social networking - previously seen as the scourge of the office - as a tool for tackling issues.

Tim said: "The number of times we heard companies were using Facebook to solve problems they previously thought could not be solved was quite amazing.

"They would put something out for their younger members of staff to call on mates from all over the world to great effect."

Overall, Tim said he saw the downturn having a calming effect on companies in the immediate future before a very different business model emerged.

He said: "My view would be that we can probably expect slightly slow but more sustainable growth over the next three to five years and that will form a bedrock to have much stronger growth after that.

"We'll see companies really get down to the core of their operations."

Tim will be speaking at a free business seminar with HSBC on March 25. For more information go to gtlon.co.uk/events