Tag: VR

Is Your Business Implementing VR?

Posted on by David Dinh

The Virtual Reality market has been steadily growing and is expected to grow to an industry of $US 2.16 trillion by 2035 and plenty of organisations are taking advantage of the boom, for instance, Facebook bought Oculus for this very reason. There are also endless opportunities in this sector and the organisations that move quickly would have the advantage. Computer simulation has become an important part of the gaming industry and Telsyte estimated that by 2020 2.5 million households would own a VR unit. But its uses are far advanced to be just utilised in gaming.

Virtual Reality has and can be used for education and training as well. And it is slowly taking over the business world as well. With a plethora of benefits associated with implementing the technology in your business, make sure you don’t miss out on any one of them. How do you do that? By asking yourself if your business is implementing VR. Since Virtual Reality is one of the top trends in 2017, your business is going to benefit once you implement this technology. Whichever business enterprise you run, Virtual Reality can help you take it to the next level. And it’s not even that expensive!

To help make up your mind, here are some of the ways in which implementing VR will aid your business.

Employee Training for Design Related Businesses

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Capturing and dispersing knowledge has become easier with Virtual Reality. The immersive way of distributing knowledge makes sure that all your employees remain up-to-date with the technicalities involved.

In the real estate industry, most businesses were early to catch up on the trend. They started with 360-degree virtual walkthroughs and made marketing properties easier. Even the construction industry has now caught up to the trend. Whenever a client demands some changes in the design, they can easily see the final look through VR. See KFC’s employee training below!

VR as a Marketing Tool

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This immersive media also makes for a great marketing tool. Since most families are still new to the Virtual Reality experience, it’ll be the perfect tool for attracting them to your business. Such activities provide businesses with an opportunity to raise brand awareness and customer engagement.

Businesses like McDonalds, Samsung and Lowe’s have realised the efficacy of using VR as a marketing tool and they are making the best of this opportunity. See Jack Daniel’s marketing VR.

Adding a Twist to Print Media

Traditional print media has seen some setbacks since the internet has taken the market by storm. Although there are many people who still prefer the old way of reading the newspaper, there can be no denying that the new dimension of news and entertainment has gained immense popularity. Virtual Reality has also penetrated this industry.

The New York Times caught on to it early and in November 2015, produced a VR film, The Displaced. The film was distributed to over a million Sunday home delivery subscribers, along with Google Cardboard glasses. They repeated this in May 2016. Through their efforts, they were able to make the genre feature a fresh perspective and to gain interest of the youngsters as well.

Help Customers Make Informed Decisions

Gone are the days when customers had to choose home improvement pieces without any idea of their compatibility with their home and space. Lowe’s store had been working on this problem and through Lowe’s Innovation Lab, they have developed some creative augmented, mixed and virtual reality tools.Now their customers can easily use the VR tools for designing, visualising DIY skills training and even navigation of Lowe’s store. By implementing these technologies, they have made sure that customers can easily visualise what their home improvement projects are going to look like, even before they get started. With this power in hand, customers are now more informed and can thus take better decisions.

Gaining popularity wasn’t difficult for this technology, as people are more open to new experiences as they were before. Over time, the price of technology has also dropped and it keeps on dropping, which will make it easier for Virtual Reality products to gain access to households and businesses.

So far, the production of Virtual Reality gear hasn’t achieved a sustainable level yet, which raises a question about the industry as well. Although China has already invested billions of dollars for VR hardware, in Australia, the production hasn’t seen any significant rise.

Over the years, prices for Virtual Reality solutions are expected to become even lower. This can amount to great opportunities for small businesses, which are not ready to invest yet. There are no doubts to the first mover advantage in Virtual Reality technology, but there are plenty of organisations who have put the idea on hold till the full arrival of VR. With a digital formation strategy though, businesses can demonstrate product attributes, help consumers make better choices, and can also raise brand awareness.

Digital Transformation Trends 2017

Posted on by David Dinh

In previous years, we observed a lot of disruptive trends, both globally and locally. One of these was the outburst of start-ups that continued pitching all aspects of technology to private and public enterprises. These pitches ranged from the platforms of digital technology to machine learning, especially Artificial intelligence. In the context of enterprises, there is a significant shift of attention as the traditional business managements are engaging with recent trends of transformation strategies along with emerging service and tech players, that immensely helps in delivering that transformation, actively.

Digital transformation is basically the application of innovative digital technologies to impact, all aspects of society and business fundamentally.

For Australian tech start ups, this is undoubtedly a golden opportunity, especially if they are ready to handle the solutions at the enterprise-scale. So what is really driving this huge shift? In our experience, engaging with digital transformation such as the emerging cloud technology, is at the heart of this. While these shifts in the management approach and digital technology are transforming the activities of many businesses and organisations across Australia, the economy of these business are more focused on shifting the ‘cost saving’ approach with a more ‘revenue generating’ one, as a quick win.

During 2017, the investment in terms of innovation is becoming more routine – something that is more than just the mere status of being a part of the world of digital transformation.

“This is the year we’ll see Chief Customer Officers become commonplace.” Philip Otley, Partner, the Experience Centre, Sydney

The emerging trends of digital transformation in 2017While, for management in 2017, it will become imperative to raise the proficiency of their employees to cope up with the diversity of digital information, they need to be trained on the ethical implications of these digital technologies, which are now fuelling the business expansion, in Australia. If your enterprise hasn’t dug deeper into innovation of digital technology, it might lose its existence.

In 2017, we see three fundamental trends of digital technology that are emerging in the Australian market and globally, in the years ahead:

The Integration of New Reality for Enterprises – Augmented Reality

Augmented Reality (AR), Mixed Reality (MR) and Virtual Reality (VR) are now shifting from the consumer and gaming domain to the organisational level at a rapid rate. The leading enterprises are embracing these technologies in developing processes and improving collaborations, enabling better engagement of their employees, with the customer base.

To be prepared to manage the future workforce, in 2017, enterprises are incorporating and experimenting more with virtual, mixed and augmented reality technology. For instance, AR allows people to make use of virtual guidance or step-by-step assistance, let’s say, in installing or repairing an equipment, to successfully complete the job through limiting risks and maximising productivity. Look at the changes occurring with augmented reality in healthcare, education, retail, finance and marketing. The future of digital innovation lies in the augmentation of the human experience In 2017, we have started seeing organisations leveraging on the digital world in order to drive fundamental change in their user experiences. As both employees and customers are increasingly becoming digital savvy, management needs to reconsider conventional design thinking, to maintain and establish a competitive advantage.

Design Thinking

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Design thinking first visualises the end experience, then synthesise processes, people, and technology to achieve the vision, together.

In the world of developing digital transformation, tapping and typing are no longer de facto interactions. Instead there will be more covering gestures, immersive experiences, haptics, gaze, voice and so on, and a seamless and smooth engagement between machines and users.

“A shortage of digital talent in the market will see organizations attempt to digitize their existing employees.”

Berry Driessen, Director, the Experience Centre, Melbourne

Furthermore, with more embracing of design thinking by organisations in Australia and globally, the digital humanist role will gain more prominence. Demonstrating creativity, empathy, agile and collaborative approach, more employee expectations and an ethical customer will be advocated, in digital innovation, by the digital humanist.

These advocacies will subsequently, span design and user experience, but along with new technology innovation ethics.

Cloud-based Workspace is at the base of Digital Transformation

The most fundamental aspect of digital transformation is nonetheless cloud. While this equally holds true for management in workspaces, even personal work is drastically shifting to the cloud, giving you all round accessibility anywhere and anytime via a browser. Eventually, there will be no more rigidly located workspaces or digital interaction.

No matter what working aspects, location, and devices you use, digital transformation in the form of the cloud have taken over the digital world. The Microsoft, Amazon, Google, Data bricks and IBM clouds offer APIs which give the analyst a lot of control.

As such, digital transformation is the pathway to fulfilling the Science Agenda and National Innovation; Australia’s structured strategy to raise the competitiveness in the world’s economy.

5 Ways Companies Have Used VR for Marketing

Posted on by David Dinh

In today’s ever-changing tech world, companies from around the world and from all different industries have started to incorporate VR into their marketing campaigns. VR gives them the opportunity to give their users experiences like never before.

But wait a minute. What is VR?

VR stands for Virtual Reality, and a brief introduction for Virtual Reality can be found in our Innovated Uses of VR for Businesses.

If you are already aware of the basics of VR and are more interested in incorporating this new impressive technology into your marketing strategy, stick around to see what 5 innovative companies have already done!

How VR has been used for Marketing

1. Volvo

Volvo, a worldwide car manufacturer, began the virtual vehicle tour. As shown above, their new car, the XC90, has the ability to be accessed by anyone in the world with a computer. They designed a virtual tour of the car where one can interact and see all the features without ever having to leave his/her home. The idea itself may be simple yet nobody had done it before. Shortly after Volvo premiered this new feature, other companies followed. Mercedes-Benz now does the same as Volvo, allowing customers from anywhere in the world to tour its cars virtually. This marketing strategy has also spread to other transportation companies such as KLM and other airlines. As the VR industry becomes bigger, companies such as Volvo will continue to provide excellent and detailed displays of their products to improve consumer experience.

2. Coca-Cola Sleigh Ride in Winter

Coca-Cola, a massive and well-known international company, has always been at the forefront of innovation, from their products to their marketing teams. Within the last few years, Coca-Cola has started to implement VR into their marketing strategy. This past winter, Coke put together a sleigh ride VR experience that gave customers, and more importantly children, an opportunity they will never forget, Santa’s sleigh ride. They have also started a creative project to turn recycled Coke boxes into DIY VR glasses. Coke’s marketing team truly moves with innovation, coming up with impressive ways to maintain such high customer satisfaction through the services they provide outside their products.

3. How Patron is Made

Patron, unlike the rest of the other companies we looked at, has more of a challenge when it comes to marketing. Really, what can you say? Drink this for a good time? It took a very creative turn to make its VR experience one that their customers were sure to enjoy. It looked past its product and looked at more of the process behind the company. It was able to capture the process from start to finish, highlighting things that made its company look good, such as recycling its used products, and showing that its finished product ends up in places where most people are having a great time. Patron really thought outside the box, taking the drinking experience to another level.

4. Marriott Teleporter

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Marriott Hotels, much like the others we have talked about, provided a new and innovative way for customers to view its brand. It created sites where individuals have the opportunity to travel the world from essentially inside a phone booth. These experiences brought them from NY to Hong Kong, and along the way they were always reminded that there was a Marriott location in each city. This showed the customers Marriott’s vast reach and that they could always find a place to call home no matter what corner of the world they wished to travel.

5. Discovery VR for Environmental Education

Discovery, my personal favorite, has further advanced the way we educate our world citizens through virtual reality. It has created a learning environment like no other. Discovery found the value in virtual reality in that it is so versatile. It took 360-degree cameras from the depths of the ocean to the vastness of space. It put these incredible experiences online where customers could interact by actually moving the camera in the direction they pleased, giving the user the best experience possible. A brand that is willing to spend so much time and innovation on its customers, like Discovery, creates valuable customer retention through these marketing strategies. It also provides a service to the public that is so innovative and captivating.

Marketing With VR

While these companies are the early adopters, other big companies are soon to follow. The future of VR is here, in the now. Companies from around the globe are transforming the way virtual reality is used to provide the best customer services and experiences through marketing strategies.

From startups to international corporations, VR is changing customer experience and service. It is taking a new form, allowing individuals to travel the world from the convenience of their home or simply letting their imagination run wild. VR is the paving the way for businesses to once again focus on the customer bringing to life experiences that were once thought of a thing of the future.