Title: Identifying opportunities for wearable technology for product development and market positioning

Authors: Vikas Gupta; Lewlyn L.R. Rodrigues; Asish Oommen Mathew

Addresses: Department of Humanities and Management, Manipal Institute of Technology, Manipal University, India ' Department of Humanities and Management, Manipal Institute of Technology, Manipal University, India ' Department of Humanities and Management, Manipal Institute of Technology, Manipal University, India

Abstract: Wearable technology is all set to revolutionalise the human society. This research study provides an overview of the wearable technology and explores its applicability and usefulness in the Indian context as most of the studies are carried out in foreign countries. This research will fill the knowledge gaps for companies working on wearable technology thereby reducing the market and technology uncertainty in the initial stages of new product development process. A Stage-Gate process was adopted as the research methodology which involves both secondary and primary data analyses. Primary data was collected through a questionnaire survey conducted among 184 employees belonging to 40 companies in Bangalore. The results show that solutions like employee safety systems and smart-eyeglasses are very much beneficial across both office and industrial plant work environments. Moreover, they are also interested in features like health and activity monitoring.

Keywords: wearables; wearable technology; Internet of Things; IoT; enterprise; smart-eyeglasses; employee safety.

DOI: 10.1504/IJPD.2018.091133

International Journal of Product Development, 2018 Vol.22 No.4, pp.247 - 275

Received: 02 Sep 2016
Accepted: 25 Aug 2017
Published online: 11 Apr 2018 *

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