Extended reality (XR), which encompasses virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), and mixed reality (MR), is set to play a critical role in driving profitability and long-term corporate success in the next three to five years. However, for many organizations, trying to understand and prioritize which XR technologies are most critical to incorporate into everyday processes can be…daunting.
To help organizations navigate this complex landscape, let’s consider these three critical first steps:
How does your organization manage digital content?
For many organizations, digital assets exist across functions within an organization. Employees grab things where they can find them, and many companies are subscribing to multiple platforms for both 2D and 3D content that is housed in different departments throughout the organization. No one creates an inventory of what is owned versus borrowed, and many times things get lost. Regardless of what industry you are in, one of the biggest opportunities to drive efficiency and cut costs is to simply conduct an internal audit of digital content (and platforms) and build an enterprise-wide content library.
What do your employees know about extended reality?
After over a decade in the extended reality space, we have found that many organizations and their employees have a lot of misconceptions about extended reality. Having a better understanding of the possible use cases for virtual reality in planning and internal or external testing creates tremendous opportunity to drive ROI through risk mitigation. Virtual and augmented reality can be used to create highly immersive brand experiences for consumers both at retail and at home. Both technologies also create tremendous value and efficiency for training and development within the organization.
One of the best things that organizations can do is provide foundational education about extended reality, its use cases and broader best practices across industries. That creates a baseline that can lead to brainstorming on how to utilize these technologies in the future.
How are your competition and your clients using the technology?
One of the core tenets of business is to ensure that you understand your industry’s key trends, and how your competitors are engaging with those trends. The same question applies to clients. Inherently, trends in technology apply the same way as consumer trends. If your competitors have found ways to utilize extended reality to become more efficient and effective, it’s very likely you can benefit too. More importantly, if they have found a way to use virtual or augmented reality with consumers, it could be serving as a point of differentiation that drives product sales. While being too early to the market with technology has risks, XR is well established and proven. If your competition is playing with this technology, so should you.
Extended reality is a powerful technology with the potential to transform the way organizations operate. By taking these three critical first steps, you can start to prepare your organization to embrace XR and reap the many benefits it has to offer. If you are interested in learning more about how extended reality can benefit your organization, please contact us today.
