Introduction
Trends are defined as the economic, environmental, technological, social, or political changes that influence an individual perception of the world around them. This makes the consumers shape their expectation on the products and services currently. Being aware of the changes happening in the industry is paramount for the manager or the business owners. Apart from being aware of the changes happening in the area of business operation, it is important to know the national and worldwide trends that affect the entire economy. Failure to address trends is caused by a number of factors such as ignoring trends which originate from outside a company’s market. By doing this a firm fails to identify the opportunities presented by the trend, for instance, in a running shoe company if a market research looks at only at the customers’ attitude on durability, shock absorption, the firm will fail to see how technology incorporation may result in new customer experiences. Another reason that makes firms fail in addressing trend is when they respond to trend in a superficial way. Trends are widely noticed because they are covered in the media. Besides, it may directly impact firm’s major customers and employees. Responding very first without clearly understanding how the trends affect the customers may result to designing what does not meet the consumer needs. However, waiting too long can be precarious as responding too quickly. Many companies choose to let other firms lead in experimenting so that if the outcome is positive they can quickly copy.
Infuse and Augment is one of the innovative strategies that can be adopted by a company to deal with the powerful trends. The core objective of this strategy is to come up with a new service of product, but one that has retained most of the functions of the previous product. The added attributes are meant to address the desired taste and preferences brought about by a significant trend. Another strategy is the combine and transcends that is more radical than the infuse and augment strategy. With this approach, the aspects of an existing product value proposition are combined with attributes that address attitudes, behavior, and aspirations all arising because of a trend. This approach is adopted to enable the company to create a new experience, one which may place the firm in a whole new market space. Lastly, the Counteract and reaffirm is another strategy used to address the major trends. This strategy enables the company to develop goods and services and also, emphasize on their importance in such a way that the consumers will reject or even escape temporarily, from aspects of trends that they view as adverse.
Define the differences between trend analysis and the convergence of trends
` Trend analysis involves the process of observing and making comparisons of the business data over time. This is done to establish any consistency in the results or the patterns. This information then is used by an organization to develop a strategy, which will enable the firm to respond to these trends following the organization goals while the convergence of trend mainly involves joining of two or more entities which are distinct.
Trend analysis is a decision tool that is used by the management to reduce the risks involved with operational, financial and tactical strategies. Trend analysis helps leaders make choices based on trends that suggest the possibility of an outstanding opportunity compared to another one. Trend analysis, therefore, ensures that the selected strategy to be implemented is the best. Besides, trend analysis helps an organization understand their performance. Having this information a business is capable of predicting where their current operations will take them consequently, how to change certain aspects in the business so as to move the company in the right direction. In addition,trend analysis can also improve business, by first identifying the particular areas of business with high performance and duplicating the success. Besides, an improvement can be made by establishing the areas that are underperforming and coming up with ways to address this and lastly, trend analysis improves business performance by providing evidence that guides the management in the process of decision making. Lastly, trend analysis is crucial in the financial sectors. Trend analysis is a tool used to make an assessment and analysis of the financial ability. The Financial analysts access the previous company performance compared with the company’s current financial conditions. This is done in order to determine the future performance.
On the other hand, convergence is the merging of resources, people, and content, industries, and media technologies. Convergence of trend is increasingly prevalent in the information technology industry. Convergence of trend is seen in the news websites where several elements are included in a single website, for instance, the written stories, audio and video clips, slideshows, blogs for individual to share their opinions, polls, and many other features. Besides, the convergence of trends allows various or multiple tasks to be carried out on a single device. For example, a smartphone being used to call, take pictures, listen to music and watch a video, this makes it possible to carry out all these activities using a single device.
Convergence in the Nikes Company
In 2006, Nike’s took a step and teamed up with Apple to launch Nike plus. Nike is a reputable company that deals with the sale of high-performance athletic footwear. The two companies came together to form a digital sports kit constituting a sensor that is attached to the running shoe and a wireless receiver connected to an iPod. This allows the consumer to jog and at the same time listen to music. The sensor function is to track a person’s speed and distance when practicing and also keep track of the calories burned. The information is then transmitted to the iPod immediately. An individual can then upload data using his or her computer to nikeplus.com, which stores this information. The website also provides a user-friendly interface that enables an individual track their progress. Besides, the kit allows an individual to specify their goal and check performance by pressing a button on the center of the iPod. The website also links the consumer to the social media, for instance, Twitter and Facebook to allow them to connect with other runners at their level, and even form groups to share their experiences. Recently Nike has expanded the kit to other athletic activities by launching a gym workout version.
The convergence of trend enabled the Nike Company to embrace not only technology, but also the integration of social media. This has made Nike plus so far a successful company; it has sold more than 2.5 million kits. The changes in the market catapulted the Nike Company to move from only being relevant to one aspect of the runners which is exercise, but also, ensuring that the runner is at the very center of it. This impacted positively on the Nike+ customers since the brand does not only focus on the product attached to the customer’s feet, but instead the whole exercise experience even including the community.
The Nike plus example represents an example of the convergence of trend where the company teamed up with another company to introduce technology in its product, with the aim of redesigning the running shoes to meet the consumers’ expectations and the changing needs.
In order to address the major trends, there is a need for imagination and audacity. The first steps involve identifying the trends that matter. These are the peripheral ones, the trends that are capable of reshaping a business. This is because not all trends can change a consumer, behavior, attitude, and aspirations. To establish if it is a peripheral trend, the managers must consider looking at a number of issues, for instance, determining the ripple effects. These are the changes experienced in the multiple areas of the consumer’s life. Establishing the impact of the trend is the second step in addressing trends. This is how profound the changes are based on the people’s priorities. Another issue is determining the scope; this involves determining if the trend encompasses a vast number of consumers. The last step is endurance, which involves establishing if the changes will be a dominant force to influence the consumer behavior for an extended period.
Some of the external forces that may cause changes in the future the first is demographic change. Demographic change will reshape individual understanding and expectation about work. This is attributed to the fact that in the coming decade the largest demographic group the baby boomers will be retiring. This will create a large gap in the tactical knowledge and the expertise. The societal trend is another external influence that causes changes. The mental life of individuals has been influenced by urbanization, literacy, language, division of labor, industrialization, media technology and transport. However, soon changes are expected. People will be more individualistic and more prepared to choose a lifestyle that met their needs rather than the societal requirement. Another external factor is the Low carbon developments. The way we live and work is influenced by the extraction and the use of energy. Based on this the prices of oil are expected to rise. As the developing world continues using more energy making the sources of oil deleted and expensive. The Carbon output will increase very fast, particularly in India and China because of the fast growing urban population. The world will heat up causing sea levels to rise and the climate to change. Some governments will be forced to introduce a carbon tax. Another external factor that will result in future changes is technological developments. Technological advances will impact the life expectancy, the size of the population and the individual’s professional life. According to Gratton (2010) by 2025 more than five billion individuals will own a mobile device, there will be low cost for computing services, and robots will undertake an enormous amount of work and the massive computer will become capable of creating knowledge on their own without any human assistance.Lastly, changes in globalization combined with technology will influence how people work in the future. There will be emerging economies like Egypt, Nigeria and Turkey that will provide cheap manufacturing. Many people will prefer to move the large cities of the world. Globalization offers the dynamic and talented people opportunities to be part of the global economy. However, globalization will increase the exclusion of individuals the people who are not part of the global market either because they lack the energy or talent to compete.
Conclusion
Most managers are capable of articulating the major daily trends. However, they fail to recognize the ways in which these trends have an influence on the consumers’ attitude, behavior, and aspirations. This happens especially when the managers view these trends as peripheral to their major markets. Besides, when trends are ignored, this offers the competitors an opportunity to transform the industry. This happens when the managers embrace the wait-and-see approach. Whereby the competitors are allowed to lead. This approach may result in wasteful investments and may make a company lose an opportunity to make a profit.
References
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