The Metaverse: a simulated digital environment that functions with Augmented Reality, Virtual Reality, mixed reality and blockchain or the ‘Next Big Thing’. In fact, the global metaverse market size was valued at more than $100 billion in 2022 and is projected to grow $1,528 billion by 2029. Even though it is still emerging, it is important for companies to get the jump and start generating value from metaverse concepts and its emerging technologies.
As Australia turns more and more to 5G to improve connectivity across the nation, we will also see more opportunities to connect to digital and virtual environments. The speed and capacity for remote execution of internet services will in turn mean that Australian businesses can reach new audiences through more devices in the home and workplace.
Investments into R&D on the metaverse and digital environments are also growing. In early 2022, a new $100 million Metaverse Research and Development Centre in Melbourne was announced, highlighting a growing need to stay competitive on a global scale.
The metaverse has high potential when it comes to customer engagement, collaboration among employees and customers, creating new revenue channels and aligning operations more efficiently through immersive training. This makes it well worth the investment in committing time to understand how the metaverse works and ways to utilise the technology.
What are the perks of adopting the Metaverse?
Aussies have an exceptional opportunity to adopt and embrace the metaverse and what it has to offer, whether this is for R&D and innovation or as businesses utilising its services for teams to collaborate. For those who are looking to understand how the metaverse can benefit business operations, here are four ways the technology can be of use:
Build stronger customer relationships
Gartner estimates that by 2026, about 25% of people will spend at least an hour a day in the metaverse. This presents an opportunity for businesses to meet these potential new customers within the platform. With the use of VR/AR, it is easier to educate and inform.
Users get a concrete idea of touch, feel and scale this way. For example, how does furniture fit in their home, or how big is the new car you have your eyes set on? The metaverse makes discovering new products a three-dimensional experience to ease decision making.
Showing sustainability with AR
Companies in Australia and globally want to be more sustainable and socially responsible but displaying that kind of information can be tricky. Using the metaverse, information about product origin and carbon footprint can be visually presented. In this way, companies can show the steps they are taking and portray themselves as environmental and social leaders.
Improve working from home
For employees working from home, the metaverse technology can also be a very useful tool. Companies can support their staff remotely with training and social interaction. For example, employees in the metaverse can experiment with digital twins, a virtual representation of an object or system, and apply that knowledge in the physical world.
Think of setting up spaces at real scale in the metaverse before it takes place in the physical world. Training is more in-depth. Working remotely in the metaverse has many perks.
New levels of maintenance
On-site data visualisation and access to information improves productivity. Consider real-time maintenance monitoring with the help of augmented reality (AR) or making assembly instructions available on the equipment itself. For example, someone who needs help from a distance with digital twins can see what is wrong with the specific piece of equipment that has a problem. In this way, the user can get immediate instructions on how to fix it.
Aussie business should consider the following to use the Metaverse to their advantage. Once it is understood where your business stands in the metaverse, there is a great opportunity to develop and leverage solutions that will innately improve your business offerings.
As the problems solved, or benefits gained, from deploying an immersive augmented reality experience are understood businesses can then start to put together an actionable plan to transition into the metaverse. In this, think about scalability and how the existing ecosystem can work with the experience you want to create, leave individual solutions to the side.
No matter how you plan to tackle the Metaverse, now is the perfect time for Aussie businesses to embrace transformation and set the foundation for success in the Metaverse.
Duncan Roberts is Senior Manager at Cognizant.
