STUDY: How to Gain Business Value From Wearable Technology Products

Mount Laurel, NJ, June 23, 2016 (Newswire.com) - Technology leaders who plan to leverage wearable technology products to gain business value should aim to solve real-world problems. That’s the finding of a new study conducted by Simon Fraser University marketing professor Leyland Pitt for the Society for Information Management’s Advanced Practices Council (APC).

Pitt conducted structured interviews with IT leaders who have leveraged wearable technology at their company, both for consumer-facing products and internal use. “We wanted to build some fundamental frameworks that you could use to brainstorm and identify opportunity in the wearables environment to be used in any organization, not just in tech companies,” he explained. His goal is to help companies use these frameworks to avoid many of the snags that can befall wearable technology when it’s not leveraged properly.

Wearable technology is a nascent-but-growing sector that includes everything from consumer-facing products like the Apple Watch to timekeeping accessories that allow employers to measure the work efficiency of their employees. According to consulting firm IDTechEx, the wearables market will grow to $70 billion by 2025.

But though the industry continues to grow, many companies have struggled to leverage products that drive business value. The framework developed by Pitt allows IT leaders to assess the likelihood of gaining value. It considers both the source of the information from the device (i.e., the wearer or outside sources) and the purpose of the device. Devices can either amplify or attenuate consciousness. Amplification extends or enhances the wearer's awareness. Attenuation reduces the signal to noise ratio by removing unnecessary information.

The framework combines the source of the information with the purpose of the device. These five “E”s -- eliminate, extend, elevate, enrich, and expand -- describe different types of organizational problems and introduce opportunities for wearable solutions to be deployed or developed. 

For access to the full study and to set up interviews with its authors, contact Advanced Practices Council director Madeline Weiss at [email protected]

About the Advanced Practices Council

SIM’s Advanced Practices Council (APC) is an exclusive membership program for senior IT executives that provides a trusted network of executive peers combined with customized research on member-chosen topics by the best researchers worldwide.

About Leyland Pitt

Leyland F Pitt, MCom, MBA, PhD, PhD, is Professor of Marketing and the Dennis F. Culver EMBA Alumni Chair of Business at the Beedie School of Business at Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, Canada. He holds adjunct professorships in marketing at the Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden, and at the Vienna University of Economics and Business, Austria. He has also taught on executive and MBA programs at major international business schools such as the Graham School of Continuing Studies at the University of Chicago, the Graduate School of Business of Columbia University, Rotterdam School of Management, and London Business School.

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Source: Advanced Practices Council