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Virtual reality has taken the gaming and entertainment world by storm. However, more businesses are harnessing the benefits of virtual reality and augmented reality to collaborate and conduct business. With massive advancements in VR technology, businesses are now in a strategic position to not only leverage virtual reality in their routine activities, but also harness immersive experiences and technology to grow in new ways.
The State of Virtual Reality in Business
According to Grand View Research, the VR market was valued at $15.81 billion in 2020. This number is only predicted to skyrocket, with the market to potentially reach $50.3 billion by 2028. Such growth is not simply due to gamers donning an Oculus to join the virtual world. Businesses are experiencing the widespread use of VR, with training simulations expected to become the most common application of VR in healthcare (Modor Intelligence). And while we’ve already witnessed the success of VR training (with 70% of professionals focusing on adopting VR/AR in training and development), there are still a variety of business benefits to adopting VR.
Advantages of Virtual Reality in Business
Perhaps the most obvious benefit of VR experiences for business is that it can provide employees, stakeholders, and collaborators an immersive experience of a real-world environment in real time. This can help to improve safety procedures and increase productivity. Other benefits include the ability to create customized training programs, improve customer service, and even increase sales.
Some of the most common industries leveraging this kind of immersive technology for business include: healthcare and pharma, real estate, manufacturing, and supply chain for a variety of use cases, which we’ll describe in greater detail later.
Let’s dive into some of the most clear advantages of VR applications in business.
Save time and money by reducing travel
Traditionally, people must be face-to-face to experience a given work environment, site, facility, etc. However, with the ability to conduct virtual tours, businesses can give anybody (employees, collaborators, experts, etc) the feeling of being on site without the need to travel. Such an ability has a transformative effect on the time and money usually involved with having to travel on site.
Improve safety procedures
According to a 2020 report, VR training can reduce the occurrence of workplace injuries by 43%. Such a drastic reduction in risk can not only help companies save money, but can also avoid any damaging PR issues or employee dissatisfaction with workplace safety.
With virtual tours, companies can also help keep site visitors safe and reduce the occurrence of on-site injuries.
Boost collaboration and productivity across projects and locations
With the ability to bring people into a virtual environment, teams can feel inherently more collaborative and productive. Instead of taking the time to travel to sort out an issue, teams can meet more frequently across a project or product development lifecycle to address any issues.
Enhance customer service & increase sales
Companies are now leveraging virtual reality to gain a competitive advantage and boost brand awareness within their industry. Virtual tours and experiences boost the prospect or customer experience. Now, customers can gain a realistic understanding of a place without having to travel. Virtual reality also increases trust amongst customers and stakeholders, as attendees can read body language and capabilities of on-site members as if they were physically present.
With business entering the metaverse, there is no doubt that VR technology will transform both large and small businesses. The benefits of VR are endless. Such immersive remote collaboration puts business in the driver’s seat of creating new and collaborative experiences.
Meet Avatour
Avatour is helping businesses redefine their operations by reducing distance as a barrier to collaboration. Our 360-degree remote collaboration platform allows users to join virtual tours, trainings, and inspections via web browser or VR device.
Using off-the-shelf 360-degree hardware, collaborators, employees, stakeholders and more can meet face-to-face wherever they are in the world, all while gaining a complete understanding of a given physical environment.
Virtual meetings can be joined via modern web browser. This includes (desktop, smartphone, iOS, android, etc) or via VR headset for an even more immersive experience.