With technology like XR and AI increasing, firms are eagerly assessing the landscape to see if any new digital solutions can help improve business outcomes across various sectors and use cases.
While XR and other emerging solutions have many advertised potential benefits. Businesses must adequately evaluate themselves to understand if XR is needed, what pain points it can solve, and what adoption challenges exist.
A business must ask if XR is for them. While AR/VR/MR solutions may continue to grow across enterprise clients, XR is still an emerging technology. So, a business must ensure that deploying immersive hardware or software is worth both financial and learning investments.
Businesses should also become familiar with the technology and understand the different types of XR solutions ready for enterprise—many devices and platforms on the market host potential benefits and risks.
Moreover, with new technology comes new skills and knowledge gaps. To integrate XR and reap a positive ROI, businesses should be willing to learn new skills to match the rapidly evolving technology. Moreover, crucial tools for all XR end-users are emerging alongside the enterprise market to help users learn how to use and develop content for immersive devices.
However, enterprise XR adoption can be a steep learning process, so end users should not rush a program. Instead, be patient and understand XR technology as it finds a home. A business’s IT team also needs deep consideration. Distributing a headset – or a fleet of headsets – requires staff onboarding, training procedures, a robust security network, and a digital management system.
While XR vendors claim the emerging technology can solve a variety of business pain points, the technology can equally create new hurdles if not correctly approached. Businesses may encounter troubleshooting problems and behavioural limitations. However, this is an easy factor to overcome with the right training and IT framework.
Moreover, after a headset arrives on an employee’s desk or to a group of on-site frontline workers, managers should create workplace policies and procedures for leveraging and showcasing the benefits of XR – to avoid device misusage and ensure credible ROI examples. If a manager monitors the use of XR in their workplace, alongside policies and procedures, it could help identify potential problems and the corrective actions needed.
Business Use Cases
There are many proposed enterprise use cases for XR. While potential use cases are proving success via clients and partners, others are still getting footing as a serious business IT implementation.
Five potential use cases are:
Remote Collaboration
Immersive remote collaboration allows teams to work together in a virtual environment or on RT3D digital assets such as a digital twin. Remote collaboration is often touted as a way for businesses to save money on travel while also reaching sustainability goals. Moreover, by collaborating over digital assets, brands, for example, do not constantly need to create physical versions of product prototypes.
Additionally, the growing photogrammetry market – forecasted to be worth $4.4 billion in 2034 – can help businesses leverage the emerging digital twin market. Using smartphones and photogrammetry software, users can create realistic simulations of products and environments to improve the design and development process. The technology development is already reaching consumers via the iPhone 15.
Training and Education
XR can create immersive training experiences that help employees learn new skills or improve existing ones. This can be helpful for businesses that need to train employees on new equipment or procedures.
During XR Today’s Trends series, Frank Furnari, Chief Executive and Founder of ARuVR, discussed some of his firm’s success stories leveraging immersive training for clients.
ARuVR is working with enterprises across the globe that have lauded the firm for its fully comprehensive hardware, software, and solutions for rapidly deploying, training, and managing teams for multinational companies such as Coca-Cola, BT, Barilla, Five Guys, LNER, O2, and PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC).
Moreover, during the XR Trends, Lenovo joined XR Today in a discussion highlighting the potential benefits of immersive training and learning.
Vishal Shah, General Manager of XR and Metaverse, Lenovo, noted the firm’s commitment to XR training, saying:
We’re focusing on learning and development use cases for enterprises. If you think about traditional training today, it’s very passive. Users learn by watching it, and they simply forget it quite easily, because there aren’t too many engagements or interactions. Then, it requires hours of work and you, the trainer, at the end of the day, receive basic data of that experience. What we’re trying to do is solve all of these challenges by introducing what we call ‘blended learning 3.0,’ which combines face-to-face, digital content, and XR content. By doing that, the training courses will be far more engaged, the users will learn by doing it and will remember much more, significantly increasing the retention rate for learners
Customer Service
CX is an ever-evolving space, much like XR. With the worldwide digital transformation of shops, the way retailers make money changed. The birth of eCommerce and UCG modified how brands interact with customers, leading to brand outreach evolving to suit tomorrow’s technology.
Some XR vendors believe AR/VR/MR technology can change the CX landscape by providing customers with personalized and immersive experiences. XR eCommerce leaders note how XR could allow customers to access virtual stores or enjoy AR content alongside a real-world purchasing journey.
Roblox and NIKE Digital famously debuted NIKELAND in November 2021, reaching approximately seven million members from roughly 223 countries at the time.
More recently, Jenny Stanley, the Managing Director of Appetite Creative, a firm that works with major international clients such as Amazon, Lego, and Addias, discussed the presence of AR as a tool to engage with customers.
The firm is helping to establish a multi-level understanding of XR because AR campaigns are partially a learning journey for brands and customers; with both parties understanding AR, the campaign will be more successful.
Stanley noted:
I always say that AR content should either inspire, educate or entertain. It has to do at least one of those things to transform from a novelty tech into a strategic tool that drives business value.
Maintenance and Repair
XR can help technicians diagnose and repair equipment more efficiently by allowing frontline teams access to digital guidance services while multitasking, reducing equipment downtime and improving efficiency.
One of the many leaders in the space in RealWear. The firm is distributing an ever-evolving portfolio of AR headsets which provide remote guidance tools for enterprise and industrial workers, including the recent Navigator Z1 product.
Moreover, as Microsoft works towards its industrial Metaverse roadmap of 2024, the firm is sharing success stories to hype up the HoloLens 2 and accompanying industrial Microsoft portfolio as a tool for repair and maintenance procedures – among other use cases. The firm recently shared its success with Nexco-East Enfgerring, whereby the partners introduced training services to help restore Japanese expressways.
