Free Research Paper Sample: Emerging Tech Key to Adapting to VUCA Environments

Introduction

Emerging technologies are innovations, most of which are science-based, with the potential of creating a new industry or transforming existing ones in the coming five to ten years. Organizations and other businesses operate in Volatile, Uncertain, Complex, and Ambiguous environments mainly because of the changing needs of customers as well as the market dynamics. Emerging technologies are beneficial to various organizations, and the management should look for the best of such technology to ensure that the company realizes maximum benefits. Apple Inc. is a technology company that was founded by Steve Jobs, Ron Wayne, and Steve Wozniak in 1976 and is one of such businesses. The company has experienced many changes in its operations, with technology being its top factor, which influences its success. The technical progress leads to better, cheaper, and faster electronic products each year, creating more substantial market segments for better products and markets. The UI and UX have experienced innovations ranging from Augmented Reality to Virtual Reality, making it easier to close gaps between the physical and virtual worlds. AI-powered Bots are quickly becoming the best way to disrupt business, commerce, and transactions, and in the coming years, it is expected that Bots will replace some apps in the company. Apple can adopt lean manufacturing through research and development, activities of marketing research as well as different supply chain management roles to experience more benefits. Today, some endless trends and technologies are being adopted by companies such as the Internet of Everything, Robotic Revolution, and Connected Home. Many of the emerging technologies that Apple Inc. could utilize in a measure to reinvent itself and gain an advantage in the way that its products move in the market already exist, and they have helped differentiate how the phone market compete.

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Aim of the Research

To analyze published evidence that relates to the implementation of emerging technologies on Apple Inc.’s products and workload.

Research Questions

1. What are some of the emerging technologies that Apple Inc. can adopt to increase its competitive advantage in the mobile and computing markets?
2. What factors determine whether the firm should adopt emerging technologies for use in its activities or not?

Methods

An analysis of published evidence that relates to emerging technologies and how they can be implemented in Apple Inc. was conducted to answer the research questions of this research. The evidence reviews focused on peer-reviewed articles as well as literature and study performed by consultancies and other bodies that are similar to the technological advancements in the company (Griffin, 2016). A comprehensive review of evidence that exists to the way that emerging technologies affect a company’s production, work relations, and management was done to ensure that their implementation in the company would have a lot of advantages as compared to when such technologies are not used.

Technological advancements affect the workplace and the role of various departments in the firm. Multiple sources were used to get the results and discussion of the research, such as academic journals, course work, and research studies from non-academic sources. The sources were identified after a search on the internet and online databases. Due to the increased changes in emerging technological advancements, the study focused on publications that ranged between the years 2010 and 2020 to get the most up-to-date technological advancements in Apple Inc.

Findings

The results of this research showed various emerging technologies that are likely to influence the way that Apple Inc. runs its activities as well as the best methods that can be used to implement such technologies in the firm’s products (Griffin, 2016). First, machine learning and Artificial Intelligence are current emerging technologies that can be applied in the products and activities of Apple Inc., such as analysis of data and making predictions about future developments. Second, the implementation of robotics in the firm increases the productivity and efficiency of the products that it develops.

However, they also have adverse effects because they can lead to laying off some employees as the machines replace them. Third, virtual and augmented reality are essential technologies required in the firm as they can be used in the development of the products to make them unique in the mobile market (Griffin, 2016). Finally, blockchain technology can be implemented in Apple Inc. for transactions and the exchange of real data that requires high-security levels.

Content and Analysis

With 5G iPhones expected and AR increasing in its evolvement with voice-based assistants increasing in momentum, 2020 is a year that will bring a lot of changes to the company. Apple is expected to introduce devices with 5G, which will increase its coverage in the phone markets (Johnson et al., 2012). Apple continues to develop its Swift programming language, where it has introduced new tools that enable easy use of the development code. Apps that will be developed using Swift will have more relaxed times when the developers are migrating between the platforms made by Apple. The decision by Apple to facilitate porting of iPad apps to Macs to have positive impacts on the enterprise with a possibility of app development projects building for iPads first then migrate them to Macs.

Apple Inc. is adopting big data that describes large volumes of data, both structured and unstructured, that it collects and analyzes every day. Apple Inc. has continually invested in research and development to create new products that have kept it ahead of other mobile products such as Samsung (Johnson et al., 2012). Apple has also tried a lot to increase switching costs for its products by keeping most of its features the same with easy transferability such as iCloud and iPhoto. Apple has also adopted the first graphical user interface, which uses Mac hardware, iOS operating systems, Mac OS, iPad, and iTunes.

Apple is entering the self-driving car industry after launching a project in 2014 that would develop electric cars. The company uses artificial technology where machines learn how they perform and improve them by analyzing patterns and data to make products and services more intuitive and intelligent (Johnson et al., 2012). Apple Inc. is, therefore, focusing on autonomous systems that combine Artificial Intelligence and machine learning hence one of the hardest projects the company is working on.

The company is currently setting machine learning in motion, where it has quickly developed AI for the car systems, which will act as the Operating Systems for the cars soon. The machine learning adopted by this company is also based on the accumulation of vast quantities of Big Data in a bid to generate algorithms and patterns developed using an approach where people learn by doing (Ojoh, 2019). Apple’s adoption of these plans as more cars are required to feed machine learning that allows them to create unique systems from that used by Google or Baidu.

Apple can leverage the technologies to give its competitors a challenge in the disruption of existing markets while creating new ones for the latest products it has. The company can adopt biotechnology to advance the emerging Telehealth space. As new sensors enter the market, Apple Inc. can easily embed various new Sensor Clusters into the fingerprint button of the iPhone or on the screen (Ojoh, 2019). It can, therefore, implement the right sensor technology that is non-invasive to give a lot of information concerning the user’s health. When analyzed properly, data concerning an individual’s health can be used to diagnose chronic genetic conditions after adopting Kenzen Echo.

This is a non-invasive sensor that peers under an individual’s skin and extracts biochemical data such as blood pressure, a saturation of oxygen, heart rates, levels of Carbon Dioxide, and blood composition (Ojoh, 2019). Apple Inc. can also incorporate sensors that are capable of deciphering people’s Genome as well as measuring their activities in the gym, as many other companies are currently doing.

When analyzed properly, Apple can use this data to promote the health sector where the users touch the fingerprint sensors for some seconds, and a live doctor walks them through the required diagnosis. With time, Apple Inc. can replace live doctors with cognitive systems such as IBM’s Watson (McMahon & Walker, 2019). Recently, Apple has teamed up with Pentagon to do more research on the wearables space and how they can be implemented in their products for better competitive advantages against its competitors.

The user experience of Apple Inc. products has, for a long time, enabling the iteration of new iOS features that involve iPhone interaction with either touching or plugging. Apple can use gesture control on its devices by adopting Chirp that is a miniature RF chip or hepatics for the users to quickly feel the fabric of specific products they see on their phones (McMahon &Walker, 2019). Many mobile companies are adopting technology where the users look at their phones, and they unlock. Apple Inc. can utilize this emerging technology by using the Iris Authentication system from Fujitsu and making it possible for their products to unlock after face verification of the owners quickly.

Apple Inc. can adopt the use of Naked Eye3D devices, making it easier to focus on blurred photos that may be taken using the iPhones. Apple devices can use Light Field Technology incorporated in their touch screens to bring them back to focus quickly. The company can use the most significant foray of 3D screens that utilize iOS’s Parallax 3D features and two patents (McMahon & Walker, 2019). Another emerging technology that Apple Inc. can use is a full 360-degree immersive experience making it easier to capture more details about life.

Apple could take advantage of an increasing number of emerging technologies such as the Fly 360, which consists of a sphere full of cameras that record everything and make zooming easier when using web extensions or a simple application designed for such purposes (Parry & Battista, 2019). Another technology that Apple Inc. can adopt is the use of Panoramas, which is a curved image sensor compared to flat image sensors that are used widely in most mobile devices.

Apple can adopt new emerging security technologies by using touchless biometrics for patent activity and strategies like in-screen fingerprint readers and face images on all of their devices (Parry & Battista, 2019). The company should adopt both approaches combined for increased layers of security. Another effective way that the company can successfully implement this technology is by translating fingertip hovering on available screens into gestural commands.

The optical sensors of touch used are capable of reading the fingerprints that are pressed on the screen of any of the devices being made (Parry & Battista, 2019). Organic Light-Emitting Diode (OLED) is another way that this technology can be implemented in the company as it introduces a touch screen that is capable of authenticating the identity of the user and sensing a touch on the active screen areas.

Apple Inc. will have to move away from using capacitive technology such as Touch ID, where the users of its products place fingertips on the faux buttons of the iPhones. Face ID will be implemented for use in the company because the implementation of optical sensors can read light off projects and enable the screens of its products to be interpreted (Nash, 2020) easily. Apple...