The Need for Innovation in Organizations
Innovation is one of the most important needs in the organizations in today’s world. Due to the increasing competition from the newer companies in the market, it is extremely important for the preexisting companies to come up with their own unique set of innovative strategies in technological as well as organizational management aspects, to counterattack the strategies of the other companies.
The following paragraphs will highlight how a management plan can be properly developed for the ecommerce giant, which is Amazon.com. The different aspects such as its advantages as well as disadvantages will be studied in details. Amazon can come up with a user-friendly speaker, which it had been planning for many days to come up with. They are planning to make the speaker also compatible with Bluetooth so that the users find it easy to operate and useful for their daily use. Amazon is also planning to come up with the first of its kind Amazon smart glasses the, the features of which will be described in the following paragraphs. Another possible innovation for Amazon will be in the field of its technological advancements, keeping in mind the needs of the end users or the customers. They are planning to come up with an user friendly application known as the “Amazon anytime app” through which users should also be able to share their shopping preferences with other users as well as do live video and phone calls to the customers. By the end of the report, the reader will have a clear understanding of the different aspects of the implementation of these innovative strategies within the organization. Presently the shopping app of Amazon enable the users only to check products and place orders but with the advent of this new app users will now also be able to share shopping ideas and preferences with their friends and peers. This will be a more advanced version of the present Amazon application.
In recent past, this is one of the most important technological advancement from Amazon, which was one of the greatest success story for the organization. According to research firm CIRP which is one of the world leading research firms recently said in a conference that , the Amazon echo plus has the ability to hold up to a share of around 76% in the market of smart speakers across the markets in United Nations, once it is released. It should also have more than 15 million units in homes of the consumers within the first year of its roll out in the market. It is also designed to meet the needs of the customers therefore customer satisfaction should also be in the higher end with this product, once it is launched in the market (Smart Device-Based Notifications: A Survey on User’s Satisfaction of Traditional Notification Mechanisms. In International Conference on Applied Human Factors and Ergonomics, 2018). Amazon had been trying since a long time to upgrade the version of the Echo speaker that it had originally released in the year 2014 and finally it is about to come up with the upgraded version. The Amazon echo plus is a much more technical advanced and offers faster and better Bluetooth connectivity. It is a very recent innovative idea within the organization (Adopting IS process innovations in organizations: the role of IS leaders’ individual factors and technology perceptions in decision making., 2018).
Advantages and Disadvantages of Amazon
The new speaker will be capable of not only playing audiobooks and stream live music in the radio but it will also be capable of being connected to Alexa. It can also act as a network controlled switch to control the air-condition room temperature, or turning on/off room lights etc. It will be an all in one device, which is going to be a great success story for Amazon if it once it is properly tested and launched in the markets. It will be capable to act as a hands free device for the consumers. It will also be capable of handling the shopping behaviors of the customers as well as managing the calendar dates and other features. The most innovative and striking feature is that the product will be available at a very affordable price for the customers. This will again be a great marketing strategy by Amazon in order to make this product available to a wider range of audience.
The Amazon Echo Plus has the industrial metallic cylinder look of the traditional echo model released in 2014. It is around 235mm tall, has a breadth of 84m, and comes with the all-new warm shade of silver color. It has a color-changing ring of light on its upper edge and has a brushed aluminum finished body. This ring is used to adjust volumes as well as troubleshoot other connectivity issues. There are two hardware buttons on the top of the speaker one of which is used to mute the mic. It will also be capable of being connected to Alexa (Network function virtualization: Challenges and opportunities for innovations., 2018).
The microphone will also be capable of catching one’s voice from a far distance even if there are ambient noises around.
The top part is dedicated to listening purposes and it has a woofer of 2.5-inch and a 0.8 inches tweeter. Additionally, it has a 3.5 mm jack for earphone connectivity (Organizational issues in the implementation and adoption of health information technology innovations: an interpretative review., 2018).
It will also capable of instructing Alexa, which functions just like Apple’s siri and is capable of doing almost all tasks on behalf of the user. It will works almost immediately upon receiving a command form the user. It has no batteries connected internally and is a plug and play device. In order to test the device the following steps have to be performed:
- After turning on the device, the power adapter that comes with it has to be connected to a power supply (Nijstad, B. A., Berger-Selman, F., & De Dreu, C. K. (2014). Innovation in top management teams: Minority dissent, transformational leadership, and radical innovations., 2018).
- The device has to be connected to a Wi-Fi network by following the instructions on a manual.
- Once Alexa is connected, the user can talk to it.
- Optionally it can also be connected to an external speaker.
- The speaker is can then be tested depending on its response.
Echo Plus: A Technical Upgrade
Typically considering the different components required to manufacture it will cost around 50-60 $ for the company to manufacture one unit of the device. The selling price will however range from 130-150 $ depending on different factors (The pros and cons of listening devices. Natural Language Engineering, 2018).
With the advent of the upcoming reported release of Amazon Alexa-powered glass, Amazon is all set to give a promising competition to the preexisting Google Glass as well as the Snap chat Spectacles in the markets. Amazon is considering itself in better position considering Google’s failure to impress the consumers with its smart glasses and Snap chat’s slow response in innovating their own product (A technical evaluation of devices for smart glasses applications. In Internet Technologies and Applications (ITA), 2018). The innovation that Amazon is planning is that the smart glasses it is about to come up with will not only be video controlled unlike previous products from Google and Snap chat but also they will be voice controlled, which will address more complex needs of the customers. Users will be able to hear Alexa even without wearing earphones. The technological idea is to enable the users to directly access Alexa through their smartphones without even having to open any application in the phone (The link among information technology, business models, and strategic breakthroughs: Examples from Amazon, Dell, and eBay., 2018).
This is going to be Amazons first ever-innovative wearable glasses, which is all set to hit the markets all across the world (Impact of total quality management on innovation in service organizations: Literature review and new conceptual framework., 2018).
The device, which is designed just like any general pair of glasses, will be capable of interacting with Alexa at any given point of time. There will also be a specialized bone-conduction system of audio, which will enable the users to listen to what Alexa is telling even without connecting the earphones (Systems of innovation: technologies, institutions and organizations., 2018).
There are different advantages as well as features of these smart glasses such as life logging as well as activity tracking services, real-time location tracking using GPS technology incorporated in the glasses as well as storing historical data in the memory chip. For instance after a complete session of workout the entire data can be stored in a sequential manner to o complete analysis and study of the history of exercise events in the gym. Maps as well as coordinates are also stored in the GPS devices. Users can mark places already visited using coordinates in order to help them re locate the same place in the future (Innovations in Organizations. In Making Social Technologies Work, 2018).
Smart Glasses: Taking on the Competition
These devices also have the capability of being connected to the smart phones for more synchronized and better operations. They can also work as head-up display (HUD) extensions or even remote controls managing calendar activities, short service messages etc. It will also be capable f providing security features such as facial detection of strangers.
The cost of production of these glasses are around 400-450 $ per units, however the company have decided to mark up its price to around 1000-1200 $ depending upon the demand as well as supply and the popularity of the product once it is launched. This will ensure a proper business strategy in marketing the product, since it is going to be a bigger challenge for amazon (Enabling physical analytics in retail stores using smart glasses., 2018). It is going to be a bigger challenge since the customers are already aware of this kind of a product. However, Google had stopped producing its smart glasses seeing its failure in the market and Snap chat’s smart glasses have not yet gained the required popularity in the markets. Therefore, it is the prime time for Amazon to take advantage of this situation and hits the markets.
This is going to be the latest messaging application of Amazon messaging which can be accessed and used anytime. This will have a user-friendly interface and features similar to whatsapp. It will have important features such as video as well as voice call over the internet. Other additional tasks will also be performed such as ordering online food, playing games as well as listening music. Users will have the provision to do group tasks by interacting with each other using the application form anywhere and anytime (Risks in the Amazon and the need of a novel sustainable development paradigm., 2018). The application will be designed in such a way so that there will be an end to end encryption of data businesses so that the users can directly do shopping, make reservations as well as carry out monetary transaction. There will be no risk of data insecurity and the users can absolutely rely on the anytime platform. The integration system will also be simple and easy to use since there will be separate versions of the applications for mobile as well as computers. Users will now directly call their friends and contacts by directly uttering their names instead of having to manually type in their phone numbers (Development across the life span of application development., 2018).
Amazon Anytime App: A User-Friendly Application
The approximate cost of the development of this application will range from about 500000-700000$, depending upon the additional features that may be added or omitted for the application in the final phase of its testing. This is going to e one of the major technological advancements of the company in terms of ensuring better customer satisfaction and a user friendly online shopping experience. There are four main cross-functional management tasks that the application will be capable of performing (A grounded theory analysis of modern web applications., 2018). They can be summarized below as:
- Encryption:
This messaging application will be using data encryption techniques so that private and confidential data (such as bank account details etc.) are transmitted in a secure way and there is no risk of data theft or breach (Mapping requirements for the wearable smart glasses augmented reality museum application., 2018).
This application will also be supporting Alexa therefore performing most of the user tasks on its own such as controlling household applications, paying music etc (IoT and Privacy By Design in the Smart Home., 2018).
This messenger application will also be supporting GIF messages and the users will find it as interesting and useful as the present whatsapp messenger (The appscale cloud platform: Enabling portable, scalable web application deployment., 2018).
This messenger can also be synchronized with the Amazon prime video account through which the users will be able to watch movies and other videos on line through the amazon subscription.
These innovation as discussed in the above paragraphs have immense potential to capture the markets provided they are properly prototyped and tested in there pre roll out phase. The echo 2.0 speaker, smart glasses as well as the anytime applications has to be first tested in the Amazon laboratories by the team of experts and also proper training is to be provided to all the employees in case of any failures in the products or escalations from the customers after the roll out of the technologies (Speaker Wars begins: Which applications will be the killer content for smart speaker?., 2018). There are dummy systems in the laboratories where the applications can be tested as well as artificial intelligence systems comprising of robots that are capable of testing the speaker as well as the smart glasse (Cloud-native, event-based programming for mobile applications., 2018).
Conclusion:
Therefore, it can be concluded that although Amazon Inc. is planning to come up with some of its most impressive innovative products and service in the market, they have to be properly tested and checked before their final roll out in the market. These technologies should be well back up with other alternatives and technologies in case there are other innovations from competitors like Google and Snap chat in the future. Speakers like the Damson Cisor, which are capable of playing with real-time musical instruments, may be invented in which the signals will have the capability of being transmitted through the Wi-Fi network to the speakers, which then is processed and comes out as the output audio signal. Different companies are also developing virtual mobile applications across the world now. Amazon can expect to reach new heights in technological advancements provided it takes into consideration the consequences of its future competitions.
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