Reflection Paper: Student Name
Ellie Ofek and Luc Wathieu’s article “Are you Ignoring Trend’s that Could Shake up your business” is a twenty first century’s advice on how business managers can take advantage of the technological innovation and changing trends to create a niche that will not only make their companies succeed in the future but also provide convenience for the customers. The advent of the digital world demands that companies satisfy the needs of the customers that are obsessed with digital materials. Still, digitalization is inhibited by environmental synergies such as the great recession and the scare of environmental change. These events make managers less keen on spending money arbitrarily on new projects that could become white elephants. However, this skepticism of spending money on new projects or adopting new strategies may be taking out the companies’ ability to stay competitive. Ofek & Wathieu affirm that although their research points out that many managers are aware of the modern trends, most of the managers are reluctant to capitalize on consumer’s obsession with new trends. The goal of the article is spur managers to consider the influence of trends and technology in the profitability of their companies. The article also provides advice on the ways that managers can capitalize on for effective use of technology and trends.
The message for the article is intended for business managers of leading corporations and small firm operating in the highly digitalized and globalized economy. In order for companies to be successful while carrying out this new marketing new operations, joint ventures with companies producing different products becomes inevitable. Ofek & Wathieu write that “trends including those that seem peripheral, change consumer’s assumptions, attitudes, and behaviors in ways that may be not be obvious” (p.127). Accordingly, the digital revolution has led to customer’s obsession with things that provide instant gratification. Companies, however, irrelevant, would need to realize the influence of trends and technology for success.
The authors give evidence of successful companies that have seen the green light and developed products that combine technology and trends. Companies such as Coach, Tesco, Nike, and I toys are mentioned. Coach is a leading woman’s handbag manufacture in the United States. The company infused aspects of trends with the traditional handbag that they produced. The youth poppy handbag combines Native American handbag designs with popular twenty first century designs. Nike, the leading manufacture sports shoes in the United States has manufactured hi-tech shoes that tracks the users performance such as calories burned, mile ran, and among others and send the information wirelessly to the iPod. This was a joint venture between Apple and Nike and has been very successful for youthful and technologically oriented users. I-toys combined the negative aspects of technology such as the popular notion that video games make lazy by manufacturing the ME2 video games that has physical activity incorporated in the games. This way, the kids not only enjoy playing the games visually, but also get the chance to get physically active.
The authors conclude by providing an array of options that companies can use to make use of trends and technology. Their argument is that managers ought not to ignore the trends but to embrace them and become creative such they can meet the immediate demands of the customers. This requires that managers identify the trends, studies the impact, analyze the scope, and evaluate the endurance of the trend. In addition, the company must conduct explorations and compare results before isolating potential strategies.
I am in agreement with the article. I believe that combining fashion and technology not only satisfies the customers but also provides the much-needed convenience. The message that Ofek & Wathieu send to the managers is to shun the old mindset of innovation and to embark on fusion of the traditional products that they produce with the new trends that the customers exposes themselves to. The aim of this strategy is to capture the customer by meeting their short-term demands and to capitalize on the ability of the customers to multitask. The article is well evidence by the use of examples and clear explanations of how different examples can be exploited.
