Drone technology

Acquisitions and Technology
Drone technology is going to impact numerous industries and fronts in the coming years. Amazon is developing drones for last mile delivery (Oswald, 2017) and has a concept plan that resembles a beehive, with drones emerging from it to deliver packages to customers (Yurieff, 2017). The military has drone technology too, except it is not delivering consumer goods but conducting surveillance and dropping bombs on targets (Military, 2019). What all this shows is that drone technology has come a long way from being a concept to a reality, and they will likely continue to develop and play a major role in the acquisition of goods in the future.
Currently, last minute deliveries and last mile deliveries require drivers who must navigate the roads and traffic, all of which requires, time, manpower, energy and resources to do. With drones, however, a last minute delivery could be made by sending a drone to pick up a package 100 miles away and bringing it back all in the span of a few short hours. There would be no need for drivers, roads, fuel or resources. The drone would take to the sky, descend on its target destination, where a worker could strap the package in place. Once the cargo is in place, the drone could take back to the skies and return to the place of origin with the desired goods. Obviously this would only work for smaller items, but bigger drones could be used for heavier goods in the future and it would eliminate a lot of the need for courier services.
Could drains replace trucking? It is possible, especially since planes today are basically almost completely automated already. Pilots are more or less there in case something happens, but planes are able to take off and land themselves just as drones are flown remotely. Larger drones could be built basically like planes and flown to destinations—grocery stores, manufacturing plants, etc.—and just as trucks deliver goods, drones could land and a team of workers would unload and send the drone on its way. Logistics would have to be worked out, but these could be handled in a way that makes a favorable outcome for all stakeholders.
Thus, drone technology does not have to be envisioned as just something that could be useful in last mile delivery. It could be used for full-scale acquisitions: consider how the military is using heavy drones to bomb targets: if drone technology is reliable enough for the military to use it to deliver a payload, it stands to reason that companies could rely upon drone technology for acquisitions. One major factor would be the distance. Drones are capable of covering a few hundred miles in one charge, so if battery power technology improves in the coming years, as it undoubtedly will, drones will be able to cover thousands of miles, and will be able to handle heavy freight shipping if the engineering is improved.
The future of drone technology is thus quite appealing in terms of how it will be used in acquisitions. Regulation and legislation may curtail some of the grander ambitions, especially if drones are deemed a legitimate risk to safety. If drones are hacked or used for a terrorist plot, the entire concept could be shelved. So there are a number of factors that still must be considered before too much hope is placed on the role that drone technology will play in the future of acquisitions. Risks to the safety of communities must always be considered above all else, and with many people viewing drones with suspicion and some even viewing them as potential job killers (the trucking and courier industries will surely suffer) it is possible that there is a large social backlash to drone usage as well.
References
Military. (2019). Drones. Retrieved from https://www.military.com/equipment/drones
Oswald, E. (2017). Here’s everything you need to know about Amazon’s drone delivery project, Prime Air. Retrieved from https://www.digitaltrends.com/cool-tech/amazon-prime-air-delivery-drones-history-progress/
Yurieff, K. (2017). Amazon patent reveals drone delivery 'beehives'. Retrieved from https://money.cnn.com/2017/06/23/technology/amazon-drone-beehives/index.html