Wearable computers and their business advantages

The major advantage wearable computers provide organizations with is the increased efficiency and access to information it provides to its employees. These two advantages should in theory allow the organization to better serve its customers directly and indirectly. I will delve into a few examples that will demonstrate the different types of wearable computers and their applications for competitive organizations.

The first example is similar to the Bluetooth wireless headset, except that this concept of being hands-free is now extended into the business world. Package delivery services such as UPS or FedEx can replace their handheld invoice machines with ones they can wear. This will allow the delivery personnel to have their two hands free to carry packages, reduce delivery time and increase the employee’s efficiency. FedEx is committed to making IT a

The second example is the use of wearable equipment for marketing purposes. Electronic textiles are fabrics being engineered to be worn and to display a variety of advertisements in different colours and brightness. The clothing can be loaded with specific ads and then the fabric shows them based on its programming. The marketing uses for this are almost limitless, while this type of wearable computer does not fall under Mann’s traditional definition it is distinct forward looking idea involving the idea of clothing and computers. "Clearly, it's an effective, smoothly integrated technology," said Smailagic, a professor of computer engineering and computer sciences (Heinrichs 2008), in describing electronic textiles technology.

In the medical field, wearable computers allow doctors to constantly monitor patient’s vitals without physically limiting the patient. In the private medical sector, doctors would offer this type of health monitoring system would have a competitive advantage over their peers. “Because functional status is by far the most important factor affecting quality of life and health care utilization in old age, valid outcome measures of physical activity and/or physical functioning in aged individuals are of utmost importance.” (de Bruin 2008) In this case a wearable computer that can monitor the day to day functioning of older patients without requiring stays in medical centers would reduce patient overload and increase the accuracy of the doctor’s diagnosis.

The clearest advantage of wearable computers for business is that they bridge the gap between the organization's employees and the technology implement by the organization.