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The business world is clearly transforming before our eyes. E-commerce and mobile communications reshaped the way businesses operate, and now the metaverse is transforming our lives all over again – for large businesses in particular but there are also great potential benefits for businesses of all sizes. By enabling a virtual presence that’s cost-effective and more immersive than traditional methods, the metaverse is poised to become a key player in the global economy.
The metaverse will allow businesses to create their economies, exchange goods with other companies, design new products and engage in virtual customer site visits, and form partnerships in new and innovative ways.
This will all be accomplished through “digital twins” – a virtual world where people, consumers, employees all gather to communicate, collaborate, and share through a virtual presence on any device. This means companies will build immersive virtual spaces, aka metaverses, and it will allow employees to virtually collaborate using their digital twin through chats, emails, video calls and even face-to-face meetings.
Businesses are already investing into the metaverse
Many businesses have already begun making investments, and in fact a recent survey of manufacturing and operations decision makers revealed that a third of them said nearly a quarter of their operations leveraged AR/VR in 2021. This appears ready for growth in 2022 since 50% of them said they would increase their use of AR/VR in roughly half of all operational projects this year.
Nearly a third (29%) said they would be interested in leveraging the metaverse but they need more innovation to build custom solutions. Forty-five percent either strongly agree or somewhat believe the metaverse will be beneficial toward their operations.
Furthermore, manufacturing executives and business leaders feel they will get the most out of the metaverse through AI and Software (57%), Marketing Automation (48%), Wokflow/BPM (39%), AR/VR (27%), Project Collaboration (23%), and Robotics (17%).
How can the metaverse impact business
For many leaders, the metaverse will require heavy investment and a shift in numerous modes of business, as well as an understanding that there will continue to be a fundamental change in the way business is conducted in the future. The power of simulation will be an exact game-changer for enterprises and businesses throughout the metaverse in a variety of industries, such as optimizing production planning in the automotive sector, accelerating design in the aerospace industry, improving overall production efficiency for manufacturers, and increasing accuracy for consumer-packaged goods companies. Many companies are poised to leverage virtual simulation to make better business decisions and generate the greatest return on investment.
In the metaverse, B2B sellers can create more immersive buyer experiences, and these virtual interactions have the potential to generate new and more sales opportunities compared with traditional advertising and buyer engagement scenarios.
Fueled further by the pandemic, many companies realize the power that a virtual environment now has on internal operations as well as customer interactions. However, they’re realizing that virtual interactions on platforms like Zoom is no longer enough to truly create the proper engagement in many cases.
Enterprise sales teams struggle to consistently communicate differentiated value when the solution is complicated. Therefore, an immersive virtual environment leveraging digital twins can offer the right experience for customers, engage with design teams and even test different product applications without real-world investments.
The metaverse is going to be important for all businesses, enterprises and consumers. Today, people and employees can only experience the internet when they log online on their computer or mobile device, but with new connectivity, devices and technologies powered by immersive mixed reality, we’ll be able to experience the internet all around every single day.
With these tools all working together, and with the expected increased investments, these companies will begin to leverage the metaverse in a way that transforms business forever.
Dijam Panigrahi is Co-founder and COO of GridRaster Inc.