Virtual Reality in Business: Why You Should Not Rush
The Blog of Andrei Sevenyuk
Virtual reality is one of the most popular topics in the last few years. This is not surprising, because the technology is growing rapidly, and this development looks fantastic. Information noise around technology support both enthusiastic adherents and skeptics who say it is overrated.
The reason for this blog was the results of the study Making VR Real about how the business already uses and could use in the future the technology of virtual reality (VR).
The study was conducted in April this year, the company Qualtrics with the support of Dell. It involved 500 respondents, supervising and participating in the implementation of VR in the companies where they work. Was also interviewed six experts in the field of VR technology. Among experts – representatives of Jaguar Land Rover, Make Real, Framestore.
Why VR Does Not Live Up to Expectations
It is difficult to find an industry that does not apply VR technology: Finance, industry, development, health, defense, education, media, retail, aviation.
However, expectations of the introduction are not always justified, often because they are inflated under the influence of the wow-effect that accompanies this fantastic technology.
Three quarters of respondents (76%) answered that their company decided to implement VR, yielding a wow-effect. 71% did it without going through all the stages of project approval, that is trite and hurried. But 61% acknowledged a significant gap in the knowledge about the technology itself and its impact on their business. This attitude could not affect the reputation of VR.
“Business is in danger of falling into the trap of beginning to implement VR technology and applications in a hurry, without having a clear picture about the future use, clear objectives and measurable interim results, to be able to make changes in the course of further deployment, warns Sam Watts (Sam Watts) the Director of VR technology Make Real. – This approach guarantees disappointment, because neither the hardware, nor will not be involved to have capacity, or will fail; the budgets be scattered; the technology itself cannot solve its objectives as they were set incorrectly. Do not use VR just because it’s now a trend! The naysayers will quickly say that VR is a toy. A worthy response to such a claim will be only quantitative and qualitative results.”
The most pragmatic look at VR Japanese. Among them, the lowest percentage of respondents who agreed with the statement that their company began to implement VR, yielding to the hype around it (51% in Japan versus 87% in the US).
So, on the way to a successful implementation of VR is often a lack of knowledge and skills, on the one hand, and the desire not to catch the “hype”.
The survey participants named other obstacles, and anticipate that most technical and technological. They were mentioned by every fifth Respondent.
A little less talked about the problems with business processes with communications, management of project resources and finances.
Expensive and Productive Implementation of VR?
Contrary to the stereotype, VR does not always require millions of “Hollywood budgets”, says Laura Pivkhaus (Laura Pevehouse), editor of the corporate blog Direct2DellEMC. Oddly enough, among the companies surveyed were even those who budget to $5 thousand However, the figure was only 1.5%.
The graph shows that less than half of study participants had budgets of up to $100 thousand, but millions of just 11%. Most companies were placed in amounts from $50 thousand to $1 million.
Here I would like to draw the attention costs, and their effectiveness and on how companies evaluate the benefits of implementing VR technology.
“One of the questions that we asked our retailers on VR, concerned their views on the value, quality and return on investment – an observation Simkiss Mel (Mel Simkiss), Manager, international retail Jaguar Land Rover. – 40% answered that it is good value for the price and quality, because we have done everything possible to it became available. If you look at what we had in our first VR work when you had spent hundreds of thousands of pounds on one machine, and then the retailer invested another £ 50,000, the cost of our newer system – 2 500 pounds sterling – has become much more viable.”
On a long-term approach and tells Cattano Christine (Christine Cattano), team lead international VR-team Framestore, a company specializing in visual effects. By the way, Christine led the project Ascend the Wall virtual conquest of that very same wall which protects the seven kingdoms in “Game of thrones”.
“We are a service company, so, of course, profit is important, but I think each of us looks to the future. As well valuable training, updated tools and productivity. For our clients, we have just reached the level where people are already talking about profit (from the introduction of the VR – approx.) but still very often, VR is only used for marketing, demonstration and PR. At the same time becomes a lot more products that are developed for profit and outside the entertainment industry, especially in healthcare,” said Christine Cattano.
Although Framestore “rolling in” Hollywood budgets for VR, but Christine operates not ephemeral, but quite specific in terms of profitability and efficiency. In addition, she mentioned the expansion of application fields of VR technology at the expense of healthcare, including.
VR-technology allows to simplify the medical simulation, to reduce the time and costs of training medical personnel, minimize medical errors, etc. Professor George Papagiannakis (George Papagiannakis), Director and technical Director of the startup ORamaVR specializing in education and training for medical staff, joined the study as an expert.
The startup has about 1.5 years, and judging by feedback from customers and partners, it is on the right track. According to George, in the training of surgeons, VR is the same place as flight simulators for training pilots and flight personnel, and will be an indispensable element for training the next generation, he said.
“We are starting large-scale clinical trial to find out how much will the introduction of the medical VR simulation by reducing training time; accelerate achievement of KPIs; optimization of the cost of training with the VR hardware compared to expensive, fixed, robotic simulators, which are still hardly used,” added George.
So, for a variety of industries and businesses, the introduction of VR technology will be one of the most important steps on the road to digital transformation, and for such areas as medical modeling, is generally uncontested. At the same time, on the road to innovation is important to follow a pragmatic approach, without succumbing to the wow-effect, and assessing the results and prospects that will open VR.
Author: Andrey Sivenyuk, marketing Manager of DELL EMC in North-Eastern Europe.
