Sandra Bergmeir
As businesses are ready to adopt virtual reality – and are diving deep into VR project implementation – there are some key factors to consider for successful deployment.
With over 15 years of experience in helping Fortune 500 companies across several industries to make VR a success, we have identified three crucial factors for profitable VR deployment in enterprises.
Start by deciding exactly how you plan to use virtual reality and how it will fit into your processes. Focus on the people who will use the VR solution and determine exactly what they want it to deliver.
For sales and marketing purposes, VR helps you present products to your prospects – giving them the opportunity to experience the product before buying it without the need for physical travel. This strengthens customer relations and satisfaction.
For design collaboration, VR brings stakeholders on board and communicates development goals clearly. This can reduce friction and change orders down the line.
For academia, VR improves experimental setups and help gather results on a larger scale while being in full control of the setup. This is specifically valuable for delivering clean scientific data, which can leapfrog your research to a new level.
Think of the use case that will benefit you today – and in the future! A return of investment is seen immediately in certain use cases. For example, the AEC industry profits from up to 90% cost savings using virtual mock-ups instead of physical mock-ups.
There are many more use cases – think outside the box to find opportunities how VR can help you. Or contact our team of VR experts for some guidance!
What’s critical in our experience for businesses to successfully deploy VR systems across these applications – and where many VR startups fail – is deep VR consulting expertise and customized solutions design. VR is far from being a fully streamlined technology yet, and enterprise-scale solutions require precise understanding of what problems exactly need to be solved, and if VR is the right tool to do it. Otherwise you will set yourself up for failure – no one would want that VR system to collect dust on a shelf!
Choose a partner that can commit to a long-term relationship in providing you with the solutions you need to deploy your VR projects successfully – now and in the future!
Also, the VR industry is moving fast. So you want invest in future-proof VR platform technologies that let you easily swap hardware such as 3D headsets as new generations with higher pixel density, wider field-of-view, and higher wearing comfort are being released.
When designing a solution, it is imperative to think about how you might adopt VR more broadly in your enterprise in the future. New use cases will evolve that you may want to add to your business process. Today’s success can be tomorrow’s problem, if you think too narrowly:
“We tend to overestimate the effect of a technology in the short run and underestimate the effect in the long run”, said Roy Amara, former president of the Institute for the Future on the effect of technology. We believe this will hold true for VR as much as it did for the mobile phone revolution.
Designing a solution that is deployed in your headquarters is one thing. But what if you later plan to include VR in different locations? Is your software able to handle multiple locations, remote collaboration, and multi-user setups? Can you easily change your hardware setup to future technologies without having to rework every single aspect of your application? Can you add additional users or systems easily?
Make sure you take scalability into consideration and plan ahead: What could be potential future problems in your business that might prohibit you from staying competitive? How could VR help you solve these? There is always a way as long as you have the right partner at hand.
The use case is clear, vendors are identified, a strategy is laid out – but how do you decide which VR solution is best suited for your needs? Download The WorldViz Buyer’s Guide to Virtual Reality and learn everything you need to know to get started.
Got any questions? Contact us and let us help you get underway with your VR project.
