Wearables Interest Businesses, But Not Most Consumers

The trick with most new technologies is convincing consumers to buy into the product — particularly in the payments industry. This is certainly the case when it comes to wearables, VentureBeat reported.

The article compiled research from Forrester analysts in a report titled “Five Urgent Truths About Wearables,” that concluded that businesses are still more excited than consumers about the technology. In the report, analysts found that 68 percent of companies named wearables as a priority for their workplace. On the consumer side, only 45 percent of adults showed they had interest in wearables.

“Why have wearables become such a big priority for 2015?” the report said, VetureBeat reported. “Businesses see a clear return on investment for wearables, which can both increase operational efficiency and reshape customer experiences.”

The reported named a series of businesses that use wearables for their employees. This includes Virgin Atlantic, which offered its customer service agents Google Glass to “roam lounges offering assistance.” FinancialForce.com uses a cloud-based service on smartwatches for scheduling meetings and notifying employers if an employee needs to call in sick.

“Businesses don’t want to just give workers wearables,” Forrester Analyst J.P. Gownder said in the article. “They want to use wearables to reshape their business models.”

If wearables become trendy for businesses, what steps will be needed to make them popular in the consumer market? That’s the question smartwatch makers still need to answer.