VORTEX OF CHANGE – Technology transcends the boundaries of the human body
Figure 15: Overview of the “Vortex of Change“ Scenario
The Human-Technology Nexus:
HYPERCONNECTED HUMANS
In this turbulent scenario, radical change is the name of the game. The interplay between human and technology has taken a flying leap of amalgamation. Advances in the area of energy harvesting and flexible electronics have unblocked the power bottleneck as wearable technology is fueled by biobatteries that mainly take the shape of implanted glucose fuel cells. The miniaturization and performance of electronic components have reached levels that make for the construction of invisible technology, blending in seamlessly with the human body. As natural language processing, voice and gesture control technologies have matured, human-machine interaction and inter- human communication have assimilated and the notion of user interfaces gradually loses meaningfulness.
The tech divide has softened: Over the previous years, wearable tech vendors have been consistently demonstrating their ability to cater to evolving and rapidly diversifying consumer needs and preferences; and thereby fostered mainstream adoption and long-term engagement. Consumers, on the other hand, have in large part shed privacy concerns and exhibit greater trust in the intentions of novel technologies. The
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remaining current of tech resistance is primarily associated with an increased diffusion and magnitude of technology-induced societal grievances such as social isolation as well as new kinds of emotional and mental diseases. Nevertheless, the gap that had separated digital natives from digital immigrants has greatly shrunk.
In this world, technology fulfills two main purposes: optimization and self-expression. The majority of people have come to accept a life of ubiquitous connectivity and embrace technology as an everyday companion. While consumers have undergone a transformation into more self-aware and health-conscious citizens, wearable technology has catapulted the contextualization of content and services onto the next level. The all-encompassing collection and analysis of large volumes of data (Big Data) inspires a quantification of all aspects of life, which resonates well with a deeply entrenched human drive to optimize everything from people’s health and their impact on the environment to the efficiency of work and manufacturing processes.
The pervasive use of technology has also evoked a sense of technology embodiment: Humans regard technology as an extension of their bodies and self. Thereby, consumers avail themselves of wearable gadgets as a vehicle for identity expression. As a result, the extent to which technology reflects a person’s status, style, values or beliefs has emerged as the major emotional selling proposition in consumer electronics. In other words, the boundaries between fashion and technology have vastly blurred. As consumers immerse in a sense of tech individualism, the modularization of form and function as a means of mass customization takes on greater importance.
Ecosystem Complexity:
FIERCE CO-OPETITION
The clash of titans has come to a conciliatory end: Consumer electronics powerhouses saw their supremacy threatened by rapid and disruptive hardware and software innovations, predominantly brought about by an unprecedented breed of “holistic technology” startups. This growing group of agile and lean technology ventures expends aggressive, collaborative efforts to address highly complex and diversified consumer needs better than incumbent market leaders and thereby forces them to cooperate. Giving in to the intensified competitive pressure, Apple and Google had found themselves constrained to answer the call for more flexibility of software ecosystems. Open innovation has finally gotten the better of closed system thinking. Open source operating systems and open APIs have become the industry standard, which initiated a paradigm shift towards hardware agnostic software development.
Next generation Bluetooth and LTE have been established as official standards for data exchange and cellular mobile communications, which enables a seamless integration and interconnection of open systems. A small number of widely used open source software platforms form de-facto standards for developers. While the high pace of standardization in communications and software ensures wide interoperability for the end-user, the ongoing standardization of hardware components facilitates supplier specialization and increases value chain efficiency. The openness of standardization shifts the focus of innovation and industry competition towards user experience design (UXD), customer experience management and business model innovation. Moreover, a series of free-market liberal regulatory reforms, particularly in the areas of data
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privacy and public health, have lowered barriers to entry and cultivated a fertile soil for hypercompetition.
The current state of market for wearable technologies is characterized by a high degree of fragmentation with competition approaching from all directions. It has become a common practice for component suppliers to compete directly with their customers (tech vendors) by investing in start-ups and leveraging their technological competences to build and market finished products on their own. In an effort to differentiate themselves, wearable technology companies create rich and far-reaching customer experiences. To do so, they often join forces with leading firms from adjacent industries, particularly in the form of healthcare fusions or fashion collaborations. Building on such cross-industry partnerships, small firms thrive in profitable niche markets. At the same time, wearable technology pervades all imaginable vertical markets, revolutionizing entire industries (e.g., healthcare, insurance, construction, professional sports) while expediting the rise of smart homes and smart cities.
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