Thomas De Moor

How Does VR Benefit Companies? After last week’s ​deep-dive into graphics lighting​, let’s now take a step back and answer how VR can benefit companies. Because let’s face it. If VR has no business use cases and no mainstream adoption, we might as well shelve it next to 3D movies, Blu-ray and curved TVs (come on, it’s a dying gimmick). Luckily, there are plenty of use cases for VR. This is an overview of the benefits it can bring to your company regardless industry. The “meta-benefits” of VR, if you will. Here goes. It’s remote.​ Airline executives doing their annual SWOT analysis would do well to place VR firmly in the “Threats” quadrant. Flying employees around the world for training or meetings is increasingly less necessary as VR technology develops. Reality can be recreated virtually and accessed from anywhere in the world through a VR headset. As VR technology develops, companies should consider if it’s still worth flying employees around for say meetings or training, or if that’s something that can be adequately recreated virtually. A VR meeting from the movie “The Kingsman” Less time is lost​ because of VR’s remote nature. This is a big opportunity for companies. For example, a retailer can virtually recreate a physical store and provide an immersive experience for consumers to shop from their homes. No travel time needed. This is something that can be done by any company that sells products, whether they have physical stores or not. The only cost is upfront in the time that needs to be invested in creating and optimising such a VR environment. It’s faster for consumers and can lead to more sales. Win win. Need something? Shop from anywhere (photo by Eddie Kopp) Less resources are needed. ​If you’re teaching someone how to operate a crane, usually there are multiple points in time where the actual crane would need to be used. As a result, it cannot be used for its usual purpose that would ultimately (and hopefully) end up in profit for the company. VR limits the amount of times actual resources will need to be used for training purposes. A programmer can recreate the resource virtually, after which it can be accessed and used over and over again in VR. Of course, an experience in VR isn’t the same as an experience in real life. But the amount of time that needs to be spent operating a real crane can be significantly reduced with the addition of VR crane training. VR crane simulators are already being used for training purposes It’s easier to track performance. ​All variables in a virtual world can be accurately monitored and recorded. This can give data that’s otherwise hard to obtain. For example, VR eye tracking allows a company to understand what a shopper or an employee is looking at. This can then be used to promote certain products or give better feedback. And because environments are easily changed, it’s much easier to experiment, to rapidly try something out and see if it’s successful enough to try out in real life. Different shop layouts or different construction material on a virtual construction site are two examples. These are just some of the meta-benefits of VR. And although it’s unlikely VR will ever entirely replace a physical shopping experience or an actual crane for training purposes, it can nonetheless be a cost-effective alternative. Want to know how VR can help your business? Visit ​www.onebonsai.com​ to find out.