EMTH6013 Summer 2019: Emerging Themes Report and Analysis

This report, prepared for the EMTH6013 module, examines the impact of emerging themes on the business sector. It begins with an executive summary highlighting the crucial role of technology in business evolution, from retail to e-commerce. The report delves into the current impact of emerging industries and markets, analyzing the four pillars of emerging themes (macroeconomic stability, population size, market entry practicalities, and business environment friendliness). It discusses the implications of these themes, such as data-driven customer interactions and the importance of user experience, and provides recommendations for courses of action. The analysis covers key aspects like market segmentation, the rise of the digital native, and the need for organizations to adapt to technological and cultural changes. The report emphasizes the importance of understanding customer interactions and leveraging data to build lasting relationships, offering insights into the future of business in a rapidly evolving technological landscape. It concludes with a call for businesses to embrace new technologies and adapt to the changing dynamics of the market.

Running Head: EMERGING THEMES
Emerging Themes
Name of the Student
Name of the University

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Executive Summary
Technology plays major role in the development and evolution of every sector and commercial
business is no exception. With the assistance of technology, commercial business has already
come a long way from basic retail market to ecommerce business. Further technical
developments provide promising futures for the business giants but at the same time, the medium
and small sized organisations face extinction if they are not able to sustain by utilising
technology.

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Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
Discussion and Analysis of Emerging Themes...............................................................................3
Section A: Critical Analysis of Current Impact of Emerging Industry and Market....................3
Section B: Article Case Study Analysis and Discussion.............................................................8
B.1 Discussion of Emerging Themes......................................................................................8
B.2 Implications of Identified Themes on Future of Business................................................9
B.3 Recommendations for Courses of Action.......................................................................11
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................12
References......................................................................................................................................13

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Introduction
Technology is evolving rapidly everyday with the implications increasing extensively
over various sectors like business, industry, education, transport and others. With the evolution
of technology, various emerging themes and technologies have been developed that find
extensive use in the aforementioned sectors. However, rapid implementation of these
technologies in the various sectors is also not recommended as it is a fairly expensive process
and it requires strong technical expertise to manage the systems. One of the most important
sectors where the emerging themes are finding extensive use is the commercial business sector.
Various large scale business organisations have already started experimenting with the new
emerging themes that have provided them to conduct business in innovative ways that are
convenient for the customers. However, these technologies also have certain negative impacts on
the business that need to be addressed first before real life application.
This report focusses on one such emerging theme that is currently under testing by some
of the business giants as they are deemed to be the future of the commercial sector. In addition to
the analysis of the theme, some recommended action plans have also been suggested for
implementation by the business organisations.
Discussion and Analysis of Emerging Themes
Section A: Critical Analysis of Current Impact of Emerging Industry and Market
The main purpose of this study will be involving a particular critical evaluation of the
recent impact of the emerging industry and the market upon the business management and much
wider sector with the reference to the Pillars of Emerging Themes. There are some

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characteristics of the emerging markets which are seen to be radically different from the specific
traditional industrialized society of the capitalist and here rises a greater need for rethinking
about all the core marketing assumptions like the orientation of the market, segmentation of the
market and the advantage which is particularly differential. For accommodating all the
characteristics like the heterogeneity of the market, shortage of resources, non-branded
competition, insufficient infrastructure and the socio political governance, there is a huge
requirement for the rethinking of the perspective of the marketing and the main concepts of
guiding strategy (Nonet, Kassel and Meijs 2016). Hence, it also becomes very much important
for rethinking about all the issues of the public policy and the practice of marketing. It has been
noticed that there is a major current context which is actually the growth of all the markets which
are emerging and it has been estimated that by the year 2035, the emerging market’s gross
domestic product will be surpassing that of all the markets which are advanced permanently.
There are a huge number of factors which are seen to be very much responsible for the
emerging market’s growth. There are actually some pillars or there is a specific four-pillar
framework of the selection of the market which several teams may be using for entering into a
particular market which is highly emerging. The first pillar will mainly become the market which
is perhaps considered to be the most fundamental one and it will be involving a stability which is
macroeconomic, middle class, market size of the consumer, openness and the increment in the
growth (Wong et al. 2014). Such elements are considered to be the main concerns of any strategy
of the market which is highly emerging (Allem and Unger 2016). The size of the population is
considered to be the second pillar which will be helping a lot in determining the number of all
the customers who are highly potential. A huge number of decisions are to be shaped by all the
realities which are democratic upon the ground. Both harnessing as well as the understanding of

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the trends of the population will be enabling several entrants of the new market for maximizing
their particular profitability by directly targeting all the appropriate people in the correct place
and the time. The third pillar is mostly seen to be concerning mostly upon all the practicalities of
the entry of the market. This is actually highly considered directly in the terms of the
infrastructure, access of the internet, partners and the specific retail market. The retail market is
seen to be significantly varying from one country to the other one (Allem et al. 2013). Last and
but not the least, the friendliness of the environment of business is considered to be a very
important factor and also forms of the fourth pillar. All the practicalities of performing any
specific business, the environment which is regulatory, levels of corruption and several available
skills within the workforce are all seen to be making or rather breaking a particular business
(Gabriel and Kirkwood 2016). Actually, it is to be remembered that business will be able to
thrive in all those countries where all such factors are not at all favourable but a specific strategy
is a must. The four pillars of emerging themes are depicted in the diagram below.

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Figure 1: The Four Pillars of Emerging Themes
(Source: Created by Author)
It has been observed that all the emerging markets are growing at a much higher rate and
most of the leaders of the industry are seen to be relying more and more upon the analytics of
data. All the consumers are seen to possessing with an instant access to more and more
information regarding any particular product. The emergence of the full new middle class,
especially in all the largely populated markets is seen to be creating a huge scale of all the buyers
mainly all those first time ones of several products. The continuous innovation and the speed of
the technology by coupling with that of the rising of millennial will be possessing a particular
material impact mainly for the business of the business. It is to be remembered that change is
really hard and the change in culture is considered to the driver for the modern success of the
business. It is a common fact that any particular company which will be standing still will be

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forgotten very soon (Contractor et al. 2014). All the various structures of the organization and all
the models of business must be evolving for the modern business of the 21st century. It is to be
known that the rise of all the millennials who are seen to be entering the workforce is highly
fueling all the change’s flames. It is to be well known that the future of us is highly digital as
well as collaborative and hence all the organizations must be embracing full new technology and
also provide with the encouragement of providing new ways of performing business across all
the employees, consumers and all the relationships within partners (Nonet, Kassel and Meijs
2016).
Equally adept at the full new technology and the marketing, all the technologists of
marketing is becoming very much essential critically for the business, especially as the
experience of the customers, technologists which are digital and the social business. It has been
noticed that other than some other functions, all the technologists of marketing are helping a lot
in spurring innovation and performing transformation digitally within all of their specific
organizations. New hires are mostly looked upon within this particular region as all the digital
natives as well as all the data scientists are seen to be beginning with the flex of their individual
skills for providing the benefit of the bottom line (Wei, Samiee and Lee 2014). There is also an
emerging customer interactions as well which are mostly data driven. It is to be known that the
marketing’s prime directive is mainly to properly build relationships which will be both deep as
well as long lasting with all the customers for ultimately driving the growth of the top line (Kim
et al. 2016). For performing this in an effective manner in particularly the era which is totally
digital, a marketer will be highly requiring to understand the great impact of the interaction with
each and every customer. While it has been noticed that the amount of the data which is digital is
available nowadays is much more greater than it has been ever, the huge number of several

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technologies which are recently employed for interacting with all the customers has been seen to
have grown totally out of control.
The main reality of the recent days is actually that all have totally moved much away
from the specific goal of deeper understanding. Disparate systems of the data and the particular
inability for easily tying up offline as well as online actions altogether has helped a lot in making
the management of data and the attribution very much challenging for most of the organizations
(Sui 2015). Hence, as all people are seen to be progressing towards the next generation of such
modern systems of the experience of the customers, they are actually moving towards finally
solving this problem which is highly complex and which will be bringing all the technologies
which are siloed like commerce, social, data of the third party and the marketing to a particular
profile of the customer which will be both integrated as well as unified (Wang and Lestari 2013).
A huge amount of effort which will be collaborative within any particular enterprise across a
huge number of people, technology as well as procedures are seen to be driving a number of
huge changes. While on the other hand, all the modern systems which are mainly based upon
cloud with all the architectures which are mostly API driven are seen to be creating a number of
platforms which will be able to be finally talk to each other in an effective manner (Huq,
Chowdhury and Klassen 2016). The specific moment which has been waited for, the cloud
convergence, technology integration and the tracking which is digital is finally present. But all
the continued integrations are to be looked for of all the technologies which are mostly customer
facing for merging more experience solutions of the customers which will be both complete as
well as driven by data. This will definitely be going to produce a great impact upon the growth of
the top line and also for providing satisfaction to the customers, loyalty of them and also the
retention. The experience of the users has led to the adoption of the technology and also the

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innovation (Syed and Mitchell 2013). The experience of the users will be continuing towards
becoming a requirement which will be a critical one for the software adoption of the enterprise.
All the customers of the recent days are seen to be possessing very high expectations from all of
their technologies because they are seen to be accustomed towards all the experiences which are
engaging, modern as well as personalized. It is a basic fact that millennials will be demanding it
and all the customers will be requiring it. All thank must be given to all the software providers of
the enterprise of the cloud, as it has made possible for delivering all the modern and the elegant
experiences of the users. As business are seen to be growing much more customer centric, all the
organizations will be started to begin the expansion of relationships across the total chain of
value for involving the partners as well as employees (Verger, Steiner-Khamsi and Lubienski
2017). It is to be known that all the engaged, empowered and all the valued employees will be
helping a lot in driving all the objectives which will be totally customer centric and overall better
outcomes of the business.
Section B: Article Case Study Analysis and Discussion
B.1 Discussion of Emerging Themes
The article mainly focusses on the use of emerging technology in various business sectors
in order to enhance business efficiency as well as customer satisfaction. Various types of
emerging technologies have been implemented by business and other organisations from
different sectors. It is the belief of the researchers as well as the large scale business
organisations that implementation of technology is a necessary requirement for ensuring success
of the business. Here, business refers to any sector including IT, general business, departmental
stores and others (Miller 2018). Already, several business organisations like Amazon have
started implementing and testing various new technologies like Amazon Go that allows the

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customers to purchase products without the hassle of standing in long queues waiting to make
payments for the selected products. The sector under focus in this report is commercial
marketing that includes all the relevant commercial retail and ecommerce organisations. While
most of the emerging themes and technologies for commercial business are currently under
research and development, some evidence of the success of these technologies are easily visible
(Marron 2017). Researchers believe that the progress of the commercial business organisations
in terms of growth and revenue is dependent on the progress and development of technology.
Researchers have also predicted that if the business organisations do not utilise technology
sufficiently, they will slowly lose relevance and will not be able to sustain as the technology-
aided commercial business organisations will gain success throughout the world (Ives, Cossick
and Adams 2019). It can be noted that there is increasing popularity of the ecommerce stores
over retail stores because of the use of technology and increased convenience of the customers
for purchasing products. Ecommerce business initially started out for the sale of movies,
clothing, household materials, equipments and others. With increasing popularity and
convenience of ecommerce business, several companies have grown up that sell groceries,
medicines, second hand goods and many others. In addition, online commercial applications like
cab booking, restaurant seat reservation and others also use the ecommerce platform for reaching
out to the customers so that the customers can book services through the online applications
(Polacco and Backes 2018). These examples show that the customers are more inclined towards
services that are convenient and can be accessed with one click on the handheld devices. In spite
of the convenience of the customers, there are several issues including authenticity of the online
supplier / service provider, security of the personal information of the customers making online
payments and entering personal information while creating an online profile in the business

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portal and others. However, researchers suggest these issues will not hinder the preference of
technology assisted commercial business for the customers.
B.2 Implications of Identified Themes on Future of Business
The identified emerging theme for commercial business is the self-checkout technology
is currently being tested and implemented by a number of commercial business organisations.
The basis of this technology is to remove the need for long queues waiting for making payments
against the selected products for purchase. Generally, it is a very time consuming process as the
customers select the products, add them into their baskets, stand in long queues at the counter
and then hand over the basket to the cashier during their turns. After hand over, the cashier needs
to scan the bar code of each of the product from the basket to make entry in the system and find
the final price to be paid by the customer (Johnston 2018). After the payment is made through
cash or credit / debit cards, the cashier packages the products and hands over the same to the
customer who then walks out of the store. It is evident from the explanation that the entire
process consumes a huge amount of time and moreover, there might be mistakes from the
cashier’s end while scanning the bar codes or packaging the products resulting in further
inconvenience of the customers.
On the other hand, the proposed self-checkout application does not require any cashier or
standing in long queues for making payments. The application only utilises a suitable platform
on the users’ smartphones (Android and iOS) through which the customer can check in or out of
the store. Furthermore, the customer does not need to make the payments separately – once the
customer checks out of the store with the products, the concerned amount will automatically be
deducted from his online payment i.e. cashless payment will be used (Tou et al. 2019). Amazon
has implemented a similar technology in the form of Amazon Go – a technologically advanced

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retail store that allows the customer to go cashless and purchase any product they like and check
out of the store. This type of technology utilised by Amazon requires implementation of
advanced AI (Artificial Intelligence) that is not only very expensive but also very hard to
develop, implement and manage with the current technical and technological setup of most of the
commercial business organisations.
Again, there have been some significant criticisms against this technology as it does not
support the buyers with limited resources or those who do not own smartphones. Many of the
customers have complained about this technology as not suitable for people who are not
technologically adept (Smith, Rupp and Offodile 2017). Hence, it is evident that there are several
ethical issues associated with this emerging theme even though there are numerous benefits for
the customers and the business organisations. Hence, in order to utilise this technology to its full
potential, the business organisations need to rethink and selectively apply the technology in the
retail stores.
B.3 Recommendations for Courses of Action
Based on the issues that have been highlighted along with the benefits that have been
discussed, several recommendations regarding course of action can be suggested so that the
business organisations can successfully utilise the technology for their growth and sustainability.
The recommended courses of action are as follows.
Investment in Research and Development – The first course of action that can be
suggested for the business organisations is to invest in research and development. As discussed
earlier, the current technical and technological setup of most of the business organisations and
hence, the implementation of this type of emerging technology will require huge amount of

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expenses. With proper research and development, the organisations will upgrade their technical
and technological setup within a few years that will enable them to further invest in the new
technologies like self-checkout.
Address the Issues – Another priority of the business organisations is to address the
ethical and technical issues of the technology that have been highlighted above. These issues
include alternative arrangements for the people who do not use smartphones or do not have
sufficient resources to make online payments for the products, information security issues and
others. The organisations must ensure these issues are addressed before such technologies are
extensively implemented commercially.
Conclusion
Finally, it can be concluded that the emerging technologies and themes are expected to
play major part in determining the success of the business organisations as well as enhancing
their growth and sustainability. Hence, it is recommended for the global and large scale business
organisations to implement technology based on their requirements to achieve growth and
sustainability. At the same time, the implementation of the technologies is very much expensive
and requires strong technical expertise of the staff for managing and maintaining the system.

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