5 Ways to add VR or AR to your business

“VR is cool, but it’s still just a toy, right?”

We hear this type of comment a lot at conferences and events and it’s understandable – let's face it, it is really cool being totally immersed in a haunted house, shooting all the evil zombies smashing their way through the window to get at your tasty tasty brains - but that’s not really going to help you hit your sales target this quarter, is it!?

The obvious answer is “No, killing zombies will not help you sell more industrial machinery - but VR & AR can!”

Something we have been saying for a long time, but is only now becoming widely accepted, is that VR&AR are not simply gaming technologies.

Because of the transportive power of a well-designed simulation, this technology can have a number of beneficial aspects outside of gaming. To get the wheels of your mind whirring here are 5 areas where we think VR & AR can revolutionise the workplace – with one or two examples thrown in for free:

1.Training & Education

Employee training is vital to a company’s continued growth and success. It’s important that each employee knows how to do his or her job well, whether that be in sales, in manufacturing or even customer service. One of the downsides to training programs is that they be costly and often involve employees having to travel to off-site training centres in other cities (with all the additional costs of transport, accommodation, meals etc). Imagine a scenario where employees could train to repair a particular machine, guided through the task by an AR simulation highlighting each step of the process as they work. The obvious outcome being a reduction in damage to expensive parts by limiting/eliminating mistakes – not to mention a decrease in time taken to perform the task.

What about VR? How many times have we stood patiently in a long line at the supermarket whilst the new checkout employee calls for the manager to correct an error they just rung up?

“Sorry I put this through as 200kg of Broccoli instead of 200g – how do I change it?”

We've all been the new person on the job but it's frustrating when you're waiting in an ever increasing line whilst someone trains! Imagine offering your staff the chance to attend to virtual customers in a life-like VR simulation where mistakes can easily be handled without stacking up queues of exasperated customers.

And finally, imagine training your sales team in a VR or AR simulation that actually listens to the words they are using and helps guide them through the sales pitch by suggesting others words or new strategies when the going gets tough?

Sorry but it's time for some shameless self promotion - Just so you know, all of our work on training simulations is based on solid psychological methodologies (with the help of our consultant educational psychologist). Include elements of gamification and you have a "serious game" that's educational and fun. Yes I am aware that this phrase brings terror to every kid at Christmas:

"Look Billy, Santa brought you the Calculus Board Game, it's educational but it's also fun!!!"

....however unlike Mr Claus's seditious lies, in this case that phrase is actually true!

Although not really the workplace, for completeness I wanted to briefly talk about Education – although this one is a no brainer! I think we can all visualise the importance of VR in schools and colleges, can’t we? How easy would it be to learn about chemical valency if you could hold an oxygen atom in your hand and stick on a couple of hydrogen atoms? Imagine a history lesson inside the Acropolis or on a battle field with the Vikings Hoards? Travelling inside the magma chamber of a volcano would make geography a doddle would it not? Ok, let's move on to:

2. PR, Branding & Story Telling

Another area where VR and AR can be an important tool in business is PR & Branding, offing you the opportunity to tell your story in a new and exciting way. Companies spend vast sums of money on brand awareness with the goal of causing a splash and getting their brand under the noses of the right target market. A simple VR campaign to highlight your brand and can be easily built and distributed using an inexpensive VR headset like the Google Cardboard. I often through a good example would be the German supermarket Lidl: they spend a lot on advertising in the UK trying to convince customers that their meat products come from healthy farms (and not chemical filled torture laboratories as the comments on their twitter feed would have you believe). Why not just show the customers the farm with a simple 360º experience in a google cardboard headset? Technological, modern and gets the point across very nicely!

There are so many opportunities in this line: Previews of your new hotel or beach resort to show your customers how luxurious it is? The view inside business class? The view from the driver’s seat of in a new BMW 7 series? A walk through of a new apartment building? …you get the picture!

3. Collaborative Working

An exciting aspect of both VR & AR is the ability to work collaboratively with your colleagues in a virtual world. Imagine working on the design for a new product in the same virtual room as your colleagues in the New York office and your colleagues in the Hong Kong office? Or walking your client through your latest architectural design, even though they are seated on the other side of the world? If you've got just over two minutes to spare, check out this video from Microsoft on the possibilities their Hololens brings (and remember kids, you can always trust an advert!)

4. Virtual Shopping

I’ll be honest, I hate shopping on the high street – the noise, the crowds and the inevitable screaming kids tugging on their parents coat tails demanding fine wine, Wagyu beef, cigars and cognac (or whatever it is kids demand – that's what I usually demand!) This is what drives me to shopping online. But the downside to online shopping is that you can’t try before you buy! Or can you? Imagine quickly scanning your body and adding it to your virtual shop where you can then try on any item of clothing, buy it or reject it all from the comfort of your own virtual fitting room.

(P.S. We are currently looking for fashion partners to work with on an EU funded scanning and virtual shopping project – if you are interested get in touch and we can tell you more)

5. Prototyping

Prototyping is an essential part of the design process but it can also be an expensive one. Unfortunately a 3D image alone doesn’t give you the full picture and differences from the screen to real life can be vast. Imagine being able to hold the design in your hand, play with it, spin it and view it from all angels before the expensive prototyping process has begun? This is what VR and & AR allow us to do. Spotting errors, making changes at twice the speed and half the cost! 

This short article is just touching the surface of what's possible, there are of course many other ways in which a well-designed and programmed VR or AR simulation can add to your business – too many to list here – but I hope this brief guide has served to get your creative juices flowing.

As consultants, we often help clients visualise where these technologies can help out in your business so if you think this would be interesting for you, get in touch and we’d be happy to help out!