How Virtual Reality Will Disrupt Businesses In The Future

by Startacus Admin

Virtual reality allows you to detach from your physical surroundings and interact with a digital environment. The technology creates specific software environments that allow people to become so immersed it replaces awareness of their actual surroundings. 

The technology has been around for years now and while originally used in gaming, it's gaining ground in many other areas. Ironically, it is a very effective tool for many real-world uses, from meetings to training sessions.

Here are just some of the ways VR and AR will continue to have an increasing impact on the world of business.

Virtual Collaboration

With the inclusion of cameras, VR allows you to add person-to-person interaction within the virtual environment. As a result, remote participants have much more control and input than they could possibly get from video conferencing or chat apps like Skype. With cameras streaming images across the Internet, users can make direct, real-time changes to plans or designs being discussed by people on the other side of the planet.

This makes telecommuting more effective and allows you to attend meetings from wherever you happen to be. It can also allow HR teams to have more meaningful interactions with job candidates through skills testing or observing problem-solving and interactive scenarios. When VR and AR technologies are perfected, they may even eliminate business travel entirely.


Online Shopping

Augmented reality has the potential to reinvent our ideas of a virtual online storefront. One of the drawbacks to Internet shopping is making product choices based on only a brief text description and a photo or two. An environment that actually lets people explore products can help to reduce customer disappointment and boost e-commerce sales conversions.

VR and AR will remove any doubts that shoppers have about committing to a purchase. Your buyers can see exactly how a new TV functions or get clear images of how different sofas would look in their living room.

The opportunity to "experience" a product first-hand helps consumers take more confidence in their purchase decisions. This applies to almost any industry, for instance being able to check out the view from a particular hotel room or select customized options on a new vehicle.  This way companies can better understand and prepare for consumer expectations.

Better Prototyping

In today’s increasingly competitive markets, there’s a constant demand for innovation. The process of product design can be very long and require many design and production phases. However, virtualizing many of these steps would add value through higher quality, cost savings, and faster time-to-market.

Companies will be able to use AR and VR to accelerate product design. With virtual reality, the time and expense involved in creating physical prototypes isn't necessary. Both consumers and business stakeholders will have easy access to virtual models to explore features and leave feedback. Already, companies such as BMW are using virtual reality to save billions of dollars by exploring different combinations of design options.

Emotional Marketing

Storytelling is an effective tactic that engages user interest and concern with outcomes at an intuitive level. Stories create an emotional attachment in people. VR allows you to tell your story in an immersive and accessible way that was never possible before.

Studies have shown that end-users find VR more engaging than any other form of content. Marketing that appeals to emotions is better for building consumer bonds. VR and AR make this easier to accomplish than static ads or product images can.

VR provides practically unlimited potential for marketers. Much of your content can be transformed into a more interesting and satisfying customer experience. With impatient consumers unwilling to spend time reading long blocks of text, content markets will have to become more adaptive and capture consumer attention sooner.

In conclusion, some of the most promising new developments in business are VR and AR technologies. Once perfected, they would allow you to perform virtual prototyping and testing, interactive meetings, and many other business functions in a way that saves time and money. Perhaps most importantly, VR and AR are the most effective platforms for customer engagement.

Author Bio: Heather Redding is a tech enthusiast and freelance writer based in Aurora, Illinois. She is a coffee-addict who enjoys swimming and reading. Street photography is her newly discovered artistic outlet and she likes to capture everyday little moments with her camera. You can reach Heather via Twitter.

 

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Published on: 16th November 2017