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Pebble Technology Corporation (Pebble) was an early entrant into the smartwatch industry. Pebble’s Founder, Eric Migicovsky, began thinking about creating a smartwatch in 2008 while still an undergraduate engineering student. After selling about 1,500 prototype watches, he was accepted into Silicon Valley’s prestigious Y Combinator business start-up program. Finding it difficult to attract investors, Migicovsky launched a crowdfunding campaign that raised a record-breaking $10.27m on Kickstarter. The case concludes shortly after Apple’s unveiling of its soon-to-be-released Apple Watch. The case provides an opportunity to evaluate Pebble’s various strategic options at the time of Apple’s announcement.

The authors observed over 30 h of video and audio recordings of speeches, interviews and other events involving Pebble’s founder, other Pebble executives, investors and competitors. These recordings are all publicly available. Whenever possible, the authors also reviewed the Twitter feeds, Facebook sites and personal websites of Pebble’s top executives over time. Similarly, the authors followed Pebble’s official website, corporate blog and Kickstarter campaign websites. The authors also drew from numerous media reports. Due to the public nature of the data, no company release is provided nor has any information been disguised in any way.

The case is designed for both undergraduate and graduate students for courses in strategic management.

The purpose of this study is twofold. First, an integrated model will be developed based on task-technology fit, innovation diffusion theory and the new product adoption model in order to explore the factors that affect smartwatch adoption. Second, the differences in the factors that affect users’ intention to adopt the Apple Watch and other smartwatches will be examined.

The data for this study were collected via an online survey questionnaire. The responses of 341 potential adopters of smartwatches were used to test the hypotheses in the research model. The casual model was assessed using partial least squares techniques.

The model can account for more than 50 percent of the variance in adoption intention. The research results affirm prior findings that perceived product attributes have relatively strong influence on adoption intention. Among these attributes, relative advantage has the strongest effect. Moreover, this study revealed differences between the antecedents of Apple watches and those of non-Apple watches.

The insights provided by this study can help smartwatch providers formulate better growth strategies. The findings also provide some directions for further development.

This study provides a better understanding of how the factors in the theories influence the adoption intentions of Apple watches and non-Apple watches.

To develop the case, the authors used secondary sources including company annual reports, industry reports, news articles, social media sites, academic journal articles and company websites. This case has been classroom tested with students in the MBA Program and Master of Science in Management and Technology Program, and with undergraduates in an operations management course.

Movado Group, which has been a fierce competitor in the luxury watch market, has been facing unprecedented challenges posed by consumers’ enthusiasm for smartwatches and by their love of shopping online. The arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic has intensified these problems and brought new setbacks. This case examines these challenges to the company’s current business model. It then explores opportunities that could transform Movado into an innovative, digitally oriented organization capable of reaching consumers in a dynamic market while combating intense competition from the smart wearable devices that threaten traditional watch companies. The case also discusses the importance of building a robust supply chain through the lens of Industry 4.0 to guard against future supply chain disruptions.

Instructors can use this case in operations and supply chain management classes at the undergraduate and graduate levels. The focus of the case aligns with discussions of supply chain management and Industry 4.0. In particular, the case uses supply chain innovation theory to investigate the implications of Industry 4.0 in the watch industry and dovetails into discussions of omni-channel experience and virtual reality in retail that integrate multiple points of contact to reach consumers efficiently.

The purpose of this paper is to review the advancements in new multi-technology sensor products being developed or already serving the market and to explore such applications. The paper also addresses some hacking problems which may arise.

This paper is a review of published information and papers on multi-technology sensor research as well as contact and discussions with multi-technology sensor researchers and suppliers in this field.

Microelectronics and electrochemical technologies have been major factors in the multi-sensor technology advancements of sensors for a wide range of applications. Sensors are becoming much smarter; solving application problems better than has been previously possible with single-technology sensors. Multi-technology sensors in many cases may offer better resolution and are much more sensitive than single technology sensors in the past.

Readers may be very excited to learn of the many advances in multi-technology sensors which are coming to the sensor field. Applications that were previously served with more than one sensor or were not possible before are now being served by multi-technology sensors. One such application which many readers may not be aware of but may be using is the wearable individual exercise sensor. One such device is the Apple Watch which will be reviewed in some detail later in this paper.

No previous review of multi-technology sensing has been observed.

The purpose of the study is to introduce the idea of arena-relevant marketing capabilities and examine their impact on firm performance. Arena-relevant marketing capabilities are capabilities particularly relevant for success in a specific competitive arena in which rivals from different industries try to satisfy customer needs with alternative products and services. The authors focus on the luxury arena and pose the following research questions: Which are the arena-relevant marketing capabilities in the luxury competitive arena (i.e. luxury-arena-relevant capabilities)? (2) What is the relative importance of luxury-arena-relevant vs general marketing capabilities for firm performance in the luxury competitive arena?

To identify luxury-arena-relevant marketing capabilities, the authors conduct a qualitative study among 21 top managers of luxury brands. A subsequent large-scale managerial survey empirically tests the effects of luxury-arena-relevant vs general marketing capabilities on firm performance.

The study identifies four luxury-arena-relevant marketing capabilities: perfection in product creation, exclusive pricing, luxury-congruent storytelling and luxury brand inspiration. It confirms empirically that they have a higher impact on firm performance within the luxury competitive arena than general marketing capabilities.

The study takes an innovative perspective on marketing capabilities by linking them with the concept of a competitive arena and underlines the academic relevance of the concept of arena-relevant marketing capabilities for explaining firm performance.

Apple’s amazing run of blockbusters – iPhone, iPad, iPod, iTunes, multiple iterations of the Mac computer, and going all the way back to the Apple II – has created a fan base of consumers willing to pay premium prices and produced enormous corporate value. This case aims to look at the strategies, value chain integration skills and management practices that underlie Apple’s ability to bring its designs to commercial stardom and propel shareholder value.

The case examines two related skills that the company has developed since the late 1990s that are critical complements to Apple’s design talents: its ability to combine “build, borrow and buy” strategies and its world-leading abilities as a value chain integrator.

Apple has uniquely sophisticated “build, borrow and buy” (BBB) expertise throughout its management, going all the way up to its CEO Tim Cook. The company’s lengthy success record proves it knows when and how to develop products and components internally, when to ally with other firms and when and how to acquire and integrate other companies.

This case is based on publically available sources.

Despite working with such a large and powerful set of vendors and partners, Apple harvests much of the value in the relationships.

The case shows how corporate leaders and personnel throughout the company maintain a systematic view of customer value, the value chain that delivers that value and the competitive and social contexts that shape value demands, so that they can communicate and coordinate activities of multiple vendors throughout the ecosystem rather than simply manage a series of one-to-one relationships.

Patent contains vast information on developed technologies because of the patent system. So, it is important to analyze patent data for understanding technologies. Most previous studies on patent analysis were focused on the technology itself. Their research results lacked the consideration of products. But the patent analysis based on products is crucial for company because a company grows by sales of competitive products. The purpose of this paper is to propose a novel methodology of patent analysis for product-based technology. This study contributes to the product development strategy of a company.

The primary goal for developing technology is to release a new product. So it is important to analyze the technology based on the product. In this study, the authors analyze Apple’s technologies based in iPod, iPhone, and iPad. In addition, the authors propose a new methodology to analyze product-based technology. The authors call this an integrated social network mining (ISNM). In the ISNM, the authors carry out a social network analysis (SNA) according to each product of Apple, and integrate all SNA results of iPod, iPhone, and iPad using the technological keywords.

In this case study, the authors analyze Apple’s technologies according to Apple’s innovative products, such as the iPod, iPhone, and iPad. From the ISNM results of Apple’s technology, the authors can find which technological detail is more important in overall structure of Apple’s technologies.

This study contributes to the management of technology including new product development, technological innovation, and research and development planning. To know the technological relationship between whole technologies based on products can be the source of intensification of technological competitiveness.

Most of studies on technology analysis were focused on patent technology itself. Though one of their research goals was to develop new product, they had their limits considering the products because they did not use the technology information in the technology analysis. The originality of this research is to use the product information in technology analysis using the proposed ISNM.

The purpose of this study was to identify existing users' acceptance of the multidimensional health and fitness features of wrist-worn wearable devices (WWDs) required for each stage of physical activity (i.e. before, during and after) and examine the relationship between its acceptance (i.e. knowledge acquisition, perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use) and the actual use of its health and fitness attributes.

Both qualitative and quantitative approaches were taken to analyze the relationships. A focus group interview was conducted (N = 9) to design the research model, including the operationalized definition of the study constructs. A questionnaire survey was conducted with respondents in South Korea (N = 480). Partial least squares structural equation modeling via Smart PLS 3.0 was employed to test the hypotheses.

When users learned to use fitness functions and perceived them as useful for physical activity without causing any difficulty, they tended to use those functions more, which provided enhanced health benefits in the digitalized interactive environment of WWDs.

This research is one of the first to examine the relationship between the perceived user value of WWDs and their actual usage within a digitalized and interactive environment. The results are expected to offer theoretical insights into how well users accept the health and fitness components of WWDs. Practically, it will build awareness of what makes users adopt and use WWDs, helping practitioners design better health promotions and campaigns associated with WWDs.