Six steps to create business value with Augmented and Virtual Reality
The technology is mature for Augmented, Virtual and Mixed Reality to make an impact and create real value for businesses. According to the big consultancies like Gartner, Accenture and IDG, the days of hype are over, and by next year (2021), 30 % of large enterprises will evaluate and adopt Virtual Reality immersive solutions as part of their digital transformation.
According to Gartner, Augmented Reality (AR) will surpass Virtual Reality (VR) as the key driver for head-mounted displays. Where VR has been driven by the consumer segment, mainly gaming, AR technology is driven by organizational demand for faster, safer, and cheaper service and maintenance of equipment – adding directly to the productivity and profit of enterprises.
Virsabi delivers Virtual, Augmented, and Mixed Reality solutions to businesses, and here our Chief Product Officer, Jens Lauritsen, shares six steps to start using VR, AR, and MR (Mixed Reality) in your business
1.
Start with the business goal
Although the hype days might be over, VR, AR and MR still live in the land of opportunity and spark many creative ideas when people try it for the first time. To create value for your organization, you need to use the technology to drive you toward your goal, and if you don’t set a clear business goal, you run the risk of spending your money on a fun and immersive gimmick that is just an add-on to your business.
2.
Identify short-term opportunities
If your business goal is to use AR to run service and maintenance on machines across the globe, you need to define the first simple step that can serve as proof of concept. It could be a simple set-up where an engineer in a service center can see what the field engineer sees, or it could be a virtual overlay of a single machine showing the most frequent maintenance task. Run an ideation workshop to let your creative minds come up with ideas.
3.
Find a partner and define a minimum viable solution
At this point, you want to work with someone who has done it before. An experienced partner will help you define a minimum viable solution for the short-term opportunity and make sure that it is executable, and that you don’t overspend on hardware, software and development.
4.
Set up a pilot
Run the minimum viable product as a pilot. You need feedback from trusted employees in the field to secure that the solution is intuitive and takes you toward your business goals. Adjust the project according to their feedback before you roll it out on a bigger scale.
5.
Inhouse training
Even though AR is intuitive, you need to schedule time for in-house training to make sure that all employees use it accordingly with your goals and are aware of the possibilities. Like with all new technologies, there will be some resistance, but most people pick up on the benefits very fast.
6.
Execute and expand
Once you experience the benefits of your minimum viable product, your employees are going to want more. Make sure you collect feedback from the users, as a lot of good ideas for other and previously unthought of usages emerge at this stage. Use your experiences from the first project to launch the next, and repeat the cycle all over.
