5 Reasons Why Your Business Needs VR Today

Virtual reality opens many new opportunities for businesses, but many companies are missing out because they don’t understand VR’s true potential. While some companies are pushing the envelope with VR implementation in their daily processes and gaining a competitive advantage, others are not even aware of what VR can do. This article will highlight five ways that VR projects can help your business.

1. VR Helps Create Immersive Client Experiences

In the long run, every company wants to impress its clients and make them fall in love with their brand on top of just buying their products. In this scenario, clients return to you again and again and even recommend your company to others. VR helps you create the kinds of immersive experiences for your clients that draw them back time and again. For example, if you own an art gallery, consider adding a VR exhibit that allows your visitors to go back in time and see a painter’s studio as it might have actually looked — who wouldn’t love that? This is exactly how London’s Tate Modern Museum has implemented VR. This exciting new type of exhibit makes headlines and draws new visitors to the museum, in addition to involving visitors more fully in their visit once they arrive. There is no doubt they will leave impressed and likely to return - and bring a friend with them.

2. VR Employee Training Helps Save Time and Money

Virtual reality can help your company save time on training new employees as well as raise the quality of your training curriculum. Specially designed VR programs not only provide employees with all the necessary information they need to learn but also test their knowledge afterward - all without the need for a human trainer. The training can even be repeated multiple times in order for an employee to learn better. The big advantage is that once the VR program is developed, the company can use it for years to train new employees. The VR program helps the company save money by, essentially, replacing the training supervisor position.

Gazprom Neft recently had their VR training course developed on the Varwin platform, which saved them significant time and money on employee training. Within the program, employees are required to complete certain tasks to earn points while wearing a VR headset, such as relieving oil pressure and signing a safety log. Tasks can be repeated multiple times if an employee is struggling or needs extra practice. Further, since a job at Gazprom Neft involves operating heavy machinery, VR also helps minimize the risks for new employees by providing a way to train in a realistic environment without putting inexperienced employees at risk. Last but not least, Varwin platform allowed Gazprom Neft to make changes in the scenarios and use the project for a longer period of time. 

3. VR Helps Sell Your Projects

When pitching a new project to a client, you might have a hard time persuading them to buy without being able to fully show the end result. For example, if you own construction business and frequently work on large projects with many phases that require significant time and investment, it can be difficult to give your clients a true sense of what the finished product will look like. This issue can be solved by creating a VR model of the completed building. Once your clients step inside the virtual world and actually “walk through” the structure you will make for them, they are much more likely to be persuaded to make a large purchase. People get more emotionally attached to something they can see and experience, and this is exactly the kind of connection that virtual reality can help you create.

Woodhouse Workspace specializes in office design and relies on VR to pitch to their clients. Virtual reality helps their clients visualize the possibilities for using their new office space and offers various configurations for clients to compare. VR streamlines the process of collaborating with the client and results in a shorter buying cycle and greater customer satisfaction.

Source: https://woodhouseworkspace.com/office-design/

4. VR Emergency Training Helps Prevent Losses

Emergencies are a threat to every business, and it is important to prepare for them in advance. Employees often don’t know how to act in case of an emergency, which could lead to large losses for a company if something were to happen. VR makes it possible to play out various contingency scenarios without the need for recreating the dangerous situations in real life. Developers can design a specific VR program for your company that will allow your employees to learn the correct course of action in an emergency, such as locating fire exits, fire extinguishers, etc. Better safe than sorry!

LUDUS is a company that offers VR emergency training for industrial companies. They have designed a simulation program that helps users learn the correct steps to take in an emergency, with different scenarios covering various events. After completing the simulation, the system evaluates the tactical decision-making skills of the user and provides feedback for the next iteration.

Source: http://www.ludus-vr.com/en/

5. VR Helps Build Your Reputation

Simply put, using VR signals that your business is focused on the future. Adopting VR will give you a competitive advantage because so few of your competitors are willing or able to leverage it effectively. VR is perfect for advertising and marketing because it makes your business stand out amidst all the other noise in the market. You could also create a business portfolio in VR to impress your clients. Now is the time to start getting to know VR better, while so few companies use it. Keeping up with technological progress is crucial for a modern business, and doing so will earn you a reputation as a forward thinker. VR is truly the key to your future success.

The New York Times is a media giant, but even it has managed to boost its reputation after adopting VR. Their first VR initiative, in collaboration with Google, involved releasing VR video materials to their subscribers. Thanks to VR, their users felt more emotionally connected to the news they were consuming. The first such issue gathered 600,000 downloads, proving the huge success of this VR implementation case. 

Now that you are aware of what VR has to offer, we hope you will consider implementing it in your business. Do not hesitate to take advantage of this technology and see what it has to offer with your own eyes. You’ll never know until you try!