From Tesla’s self-driving cars to Facebook’s Metaverse and all the intelligent AI softwares that can literally do anything that you can imagine, the capabilities of 21st Century technology are showing incremental progress. We live in a consumer-centric society and tech companies are constantly innovating to come up with new ways to solve existing problems and provide immersive experiences. The bridge between perceived reality, mixed reality, augmented reality and virtual reality is shorter than ever. While VR was mostly associated with gaming in the recent past, now it is quickly becoming a crucial part of businesses across the planet.
What is Virtual Reality?
Companies are incorporating VR into their daily operations to increase efficiency, reduce costs and revolutionize the way customers experience products and services. Virtual Reality(VR) in business refers to a high-end simulated environment that is hyper realistic since it looks and feels completely real. The combination of sophisticated digital hardware and software work together to provide a real-world experience. Here’s how VR is being used by businesses in innovative ways:
1) ‘Try Before You Buy’ Experience
Shopping for bulky and costly items online is a bit decision for people, however, VR allows customers to try the products virtually before making such purchases. Furniture stores have VR tech embedded into their websites so that people are able to use their phones to virtually see how a particular piece of furniture would look at any spot in their home. Similarly, Volvo takes the whole ‘try before you buy’ model to another plane of immersion by allowing customers to virtually test drive their cars through their phones.
2) Promoting New Products and Brands
Thanks to VR glasses and headsets, a lot of new brands and products are able to give customers a fully immersive 3D experience and take them on a journey. Such revolutionary experiences through virtual reality(VR) and augmented reality(AR) forge an emotional connection between a company and its customers. This strategy is being used a lot of airlines and travel companies to give customers a feel of how their next holiday destination would look like.
Using VR Headsets such the Oculus Rift VR or the ones by made by HTC, Google and Microsoft, companies are able simulate a fully immerse 3D Virtual Reality and Audio Reality to offer life-like experiences.
3) Creating Prototypes
Some product prototypes require extensive development which is very risky due to the time and money it takes. Spending all that manpower, time and money means that a company incurs a high opportunity cost during the developmental stages since that time could have been used to generate revenue. Moreover, if a prototype is unsuccessful or the final product doesn’t eventually sell in the market, the company incurs huge losses. Startups are even more vulnerable in this regard. That’s where the magic of virtual reality comes in.
Companies can now render 3D models of prototypes to get a headstart on the potential flaws in design as well as having the luxury to create and pitch those 3D models to potential investors and customers before spending exorbitant amounts of resources on actually developing them as tangible products. Think of it as like having insurance for your future innovations!
Written by Gagan Dhawan
Wri
