Smart Watches and Traditional Watches-Free-Samples for Students

Question: Write a reflective journal on Smart Watches and Traditional Watches. Answer: The aim of the reflective journal is to assess the impact of smart watches on the traditional watches and their markets. The scope of the journal covers the background of the two classes of watches, the strengths and weaknesses of smart phones and their capabilities to serve the multiple needs of the users. According to me smart watches are one of the most useful inventions of the present age. The companies are designing their products keeping the needs of the users in mind and the smart watches clearly show that. The smart watches serve multiple needs like receiving notification, reading heart beats of the users and even responding to Facebook messages. I can say they are mini computers in form of watches and some authors claim that the smart watches are slowly capsizing the markets of the traditional watches. However, there remains a doubt over the total truth of the fact because smart watches have their own disadvantages like short battery life which render them weak before tradit ional watches. The history of the traditional watches dates back to old ages when pocket watches were preferred to wrist watches. I can point out that the wrist watch developed to serve the soldiers during the World War I and not to help the civilians to check time. The wrist watch manufacturing I feel was largely concentrated in Europe especially in Switzerland. I can point out even today some of the most expensive traditional watches are made in Switzerland and the luxury watches are referred to as Swiss watches. The watch market of the traditional wrist watches were dominated by the luxurious watch makers. I feel that the advent of the smart watch industry and market worldwide have succeeded in challenging this dominance of traditional watch makers. I can point that the background of smart watches is far more recent but revolutionary in character. The smart watch is a combination of a traditional time piece and a mini computer or smart phone, all rolled into one. The first smart watch was developed by Hamilton which had a memory of its own. Another feature which is particular to the smart watch market is the collaboration of companies from various industries to produce and market smart watches. This feature was not very common in the traditional watch market. I can point out that these joint ventures helped the companies manufacturing smart watches bring about open innovation to make wearable pieces of technology which are capable of serving multiple needs. It is needless to say this multi utility serving capacity of the smart watches sets them apart from the traditional counterparts. I can point out that the smart watch market is spread all over the world at its very rudimentary stage. The smart watch challenged the dominance of Europe as the leading manufacturer and market in the world. The companies from various sectors collaborate to make smart watches having multiple features. The electronics giant Samsung collaborated with Google which is computer technology giant. Google provided its operating system while LG provided its hardware and technical expertise. Again I can point out that the smart watch market not only attracted IT giants, it attracted international sports goods companies like Nike as well. The smart watch market encouraged the regional companies of the emerging markets of Asia to enter and grow in the international market. For example, Titan from India and Xiomi in China are making and exporting smart watches both locally and internationally. Thus, the smart watch encouraged more competitiveness in the watch market and has made it more customer centric and profitable. Today the traditional wrist watch companies are making more innovative models of wrist watches which are capable of satisfying multiple needs of the users. For example, Rolex and Omega have introduced watches which are capable of showing date, giving alarm tones and various other features. I can also point out that the traditional watch market have presence of companies which manufacture both smart watches and traditional wrist watches. For example, Timex of the United States of America and Titan of India have strong presence in both the markets and export their models. I can point out that the smart watch market owing to the presence of multinational companies has more chances of growth compared to the traditional wrist watch market. I must point out that Samsung and Apple are among the biggest multinational companies in their respective sectors, Electronic and IT respectively. These companies are financially and competitively stronger than the traditional watch makers like Rolex. The huge financial and technologically resources allow these companies to carry on research and innovation on robust scale. I can opine that the smart watch markets have also led to entry of big business conglomerates from emerging markets into watch making. For example, Titan luxury watches and smart watches are owned by Tata, one of biggest Indian business conglomerate all over the world. These new entering companies give tough competition to the traditional watch makers which have made the watch market more competitive. They are able to share their resources to make wa tches which combine the technical strength of both. For example, the smart watches by Google and LG run on Android platform of the first and hardware of the second. These companies use their market goodwill to promote their smart watch products which allow the smart watches to find ready acceptance in the international market. The traditional smart watches are mostly solitary companies bringing about models of wrist watches. The combined power of the international companies like Samsung and Apple helped them to carry out open innovation. I can point out that this open innovation has helped them to introduce more advanced watches with more features. These companies are owners of some of the most sought after smart watches in the world. Their watches sell at high prices and are extremely useful in serving multiple needs of the customers. They help these companies to maximise the value of the customers purchase and ensure high degree of customer satisfaction. I can point out that the smart watches have to a certain extent succeeded to give a tough competition to the traditional watch makers in the international market. The smart watches are wearable technology which allows the users to do a variety of things. The users can receive meassages, listen to music, track roads using GPS systems and even use Facebook. These features of smart watches have attracted the young customers mostly who are rich enough to buy these expensive gadget watches. This helped the smart watch companies like Apple earn more revenue to gain more competitive advantage over the market. I can also point out that the smart watches can be used to make jobs easier. For example, the tourist managers used smart watches to manage and control tourists in historical locations. The tourists on the other hand used smart watches to find out places using GPS. The passengers could use smart watches to hold copies of their tickets and boarding passes to show them at the check point s. Thus, smart watches encourage sustainability by promoting usage of tickets in digital forms instead of paper forms. This tremendous utility of the smart watches, their huge markets and the global strengths of their manufacturers attract investments towards the smart watch manufacturers. I can point out that the this tremendous market position of the smart watch companies causes the share price of the traditional watch companies to go down, thus detrimentally impacting their market positions. However, the smart watches too have disadvantages which render them prey to market challenges. The biggest disadvantage of smart watches is their limited battery lives compared to the traditional watches. However, the smart watch companies like Apple and Fitbit are introducing models which can run for upto five days without charging. The second disadvantage of smart watches lies in their view operating methods. The screens of the smart watches are extremely sensitive and get damaged by water and dust. This defect is causing the smart watch companies spend huge amount of money to bring about new water resistant models. The smart watch market have big players like Apple and LG. This presence of multinational companies and the future profitability of the market have made it extremely competitive. The smart watches have to keep on introducing more advanced models to retain their market position. I can point that though apparently smart watch companies succeed in attracting robust investments, the stiff competition and continuous investment to sustain in it often result in disappro val from the stakeholders. This lack of cooperation from stakeholders inhibits innovation which impact the competitive advantage of the smart phone companies. I feel that the traditional Swiss wrist watches are still preferred by the upper class people owing to their luxury and aristocracy. Thus, the smart watches have not succeeded in causing total erosion of the traditional watch market. I can conclude that though smart watches are advanced and more useful compared to the traditional watches, they have their weaknesses as well. 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