This is a concept that is being developed by Amazon that will enable the company to deliver Amazon’s products that are less than five pounds to the customer’s doorsteps. The concept will work in such a way that the drones (small unmanned aircrafts) will deliver the products to the premises of the customers. The drones will deliver the products in less than 30 minutes from the time they start. They are to operate in space. This is part of the program that is developed by Amazon called Amazon Prime Air. The technical features of the drones depict that of octocopters which is a technology that is under the Amazon Prime Air program. What will happen is that a drone will be placed at the end of a conveyor belt waiting for a package to be placed on it in order to pick it and deliver to the customer. 86 percent of the packages that are picked by drones are less than five pounds. The distance that the drones can carry the packages from the fulfillment center is 10 miles. What are still lacking are the regulations regarding the air operations of the drones. There is still lack of policies in which the drones can work. There is the development of drones that will be used to undertake this new kind of transport (Smith, Bailey, and Brynjolfsson 18).
What makes it an emerging technology?
The Amazon drone is an emerging technology because of the fact that it is a new form of shipping products to the clients. All along, products have been physically dropped by way of road or ship in case the client is far away. It is also a new form of transport because the octocopters will be controlled from a central location and will drop the products on their own. They use the GPS system to locate the customer’s premises and drop the product there. This is an emerging technology in the shipping of the products to the client’s premises. There might be other technologies that have been started like robots that may travel on their own. This is new in shipping the products. It will be interesting to see how the Amazon drones will drop the gadgets. It is fast in delivery and will be directed to the premises where the client is located (Tretheway, and Oum 29).
Customer and market definition
There are factors that will determine the success of this technology. These factors will be defined using Porter’s five forces.
Threat of new entrants – with the development of new GPS technologies, there is a possibility that there will be models developed that will deliver goods to the clients. There are also online retailer shops that are being established. This is not a major issue to the company because this a technology that is meant to reduce their transport costs and increase efficiency. They are not using this technology to make more profits. So this is not an important issue per se unless the business model of Amazon itself is under threat. The hindering factor in this case would be the regulations of the FAA. There is a need to have regulations that will govern this development and the operations on air. This might be an issue to new entrants (Magedanz, Rothermel, and Krause 287).
Bargaining power of buyers – the buyers’ bargaining power will also be an issue if this technology will be sold to other online retailers. With the development of other technologies, they could be an issue to this technology. The clients might also be concerned about the security and accuracy of the new technology. What is the security of the technology in terms of dropping the products when no one is present to check? These are the issues that might be of concern to the clients.
Bargaining power of suppliers - the suppliers of the parts that will be used to develop the drones will be an issue in this technology. If the suppliers of the parts will be costly, then the venture would be a toll order to Amazon. They would have to use their current means of transporting the products to the client. The suppliers in this case would also mean the regulatory bodies for air transport, for this case FAA. If there are stringent requirements for this technology to operate, it will be expensive venture to the company.
Competitive rivalry – there are not evident competitors who are seen to be competing with this new technology. This technology is still under research in many universities and research institutions. It has not been implemented in any company. If Amazon will implement this technology, they will be the first one to have this technology in operation. This force is not of concern at the moment because the technology is still new (Gunkel 25).
Threat of substitute products – this technology could be substituted by private and hired choppers. There could also be cheaper means of road transport. The only problem with the road transport is that it is not efficient and will take a lot of time to deliver the product. The use of private choppers as a substitute of the technology will not be viable because it will be more expensive.
Target market
The target customer for this technology would be the online buyers who use Amazon website to buy their products. This will be used for those people who like to order their shopping from online retailers. They will use the technology for shipping their goods. This is efficient and reliable when compared to other means of shipping products. Companies will also be interested with this technology as they would use it to transport products to clients who have ordered. This is a viable option to be used for this purpose. The technology would also fit the parcel delivery companies. This is efficient so that parcels and small goods are delivered on time to the client.
Potential benefits to the customer
Customers will benefit from this technology because of the fact that the delivery of the goods they order online will be done efficiently. They will no longer have to wait for long in order to get their products delivered to them. Another benefit is that they will get accurate deliveries because the octocopters will make use of coordinates to locate the client.
Market assessment
The current market of this technology is not viable because there is still lack of a framework from air control agencies like FAA. There are still some aspects of the technology that are still be developed to ensure that the delivery is smooth. When all these have been addressed, the market will grow and there will be many users of this technology. It has a bright future.
Conclusion
This technology will succeed. When everything has been addressed concerning the regulations and the process of delivery, then this technology will be successful. The success is because of the fact that there is the hope of having GPS technologies in place which will aid in integrating this technology. There is also a growth in the number of online shoppers who are seen to be the most users of the technology.
Works cited
Gunkel, David. "Amazon Drone Delivery." (2013).
Magedanz, Thomas, Kurt Rothermel, and Sven Krause. "Intelligent agents: An emerging technology for next generation telecommunications?" INFOCOM'96. Fifteenth Annual Joint Conference of the IEEE Computer Societies. Networking the Next Generation. Proceedings IEEE. Vol. 2. IEEE, 1996.
Smith, Michael D., Joseph Bailey, and Erik Brynjolfsson. Understanding digital markets: review and assessment. MIT press, 1999.
Tretheway, Michael W., and Tae Hoon Oum. Airline economics: foundations for strategy and policy. 1992.
