Insights success The 10 Fastest Growing Security Solution Provider Companies november2016-min

CXO Standpaoint
solutions into an immersive media format. New
applications are surfacing across an array of verticals:
Healthcare: Today, doctors often carry paperwork and
consult charts in order to assess their patients. With MR,
physicians and nurses could access this information
digitally and hands-free, allowing them to share it with
fellow staff or even consult doctors across the country.
Education: With VR, complex systems could be visualized
in three dimensions. Teachers can use virtual displays to
show students how blood flows through the heart or take
students on a field trip to a South American rainforest. VR
could also allow realistic, complex training simulations that
take minimal resources to create.
Engineering: There are numerous potential applications for
MR and VR in engineering, especially with remote
collaboration. Oil rigs, for example, require constant
monitoring, but it’s not always possible to assign expert
technicians to every location. Equipped with an MR
headset, a maintenance worker could be instructed by
someone on the other side of the world to conduct repairs
properly. Architectural and design projects could also
benefit from MR where multiple people could manipulate
and shape objects within a shared environment.
As new technologies, VR and MR require a different
approach. For any company who wishes to incorporate
these new technologies into their processes, the following
considerations are important to keep in mind:
Comfort and Safety
Most VR platforms require you to wear something on your
face. This is a very intimate way to connect to technology
compared to what most people are used to, which is a
screen they can keep at a distance. Thus, ensuring a
comfortable, enjoyable VR experience is important for your
comfort and safety.
VR and MR Do Not Replace Existing Workflows
It can be tempting to consider VR a quick solution to
problem solving. However, it’s important to remember that
VR and MR are not about replacing existing workflows, but
enhancing them. Companies should carefully consider their
workflows and identify where MR or VR can be added as a
discrete, important part of the workflow.
Choosing the Right Agency to Work With
Designing for VR and MR is not a simple task. It’s unlike
any other popular software design from the last 20-30 years
and requires an unusual skillset. Designers must think about
the logistics of creating a 3D object; adding different
behaviors and interactions to it that match people’s
expectations of how the object would behave in the real
world; and finally adding in digital properties such as the
ability to resize, annotate, and transform it. In this
environment, drawing on a combination of skills in gaming
and cinema are key in conjunction with the ability to apply
these skillsets to enterprise business problem solving.
Right now people are focused on moving from web to
mobile, but the big question is whether VR technology will
become as commonplace as smartphones. Broader adoption
will probably come in the next three to five years, driven
primarily by the entertainment and media landscape. This
means that finding ways to effectively integrate VR and AR
into a business and operations context will require creativity
to design solutions and a willingness to experiment.
VR represents a real opportunity to improve the quality of
human experience in two ways. First, integrating it into
highly visual and hands-on remote collaboration processes
can be a multiplier for human productivity. It can remove
the need to be physically present, but offers more direct
interactivity than teleconferencing or email. By improving
the efficiency of communicating information, it can reduce
time spent on extraneous workflow and processes.
Second, VR and MR can be used to help people understand
complex data in an intuitive way. Imagine if FedEx could
visualize all of its operations around the world, and how
quickly they could identify areas for improvement for
transportation and logistics.
This is only the tip of the iceberg as far as Virtual and
Mixed Reality is concerned. Over the next few years, VR
and MR will continue to evolve, changing the landscape of
digital media as it finds its way into the hands of more and
more users. To remain innovative and relevant to their
consumers, companies should pay close attention to this
space and begin exploring its potential to benefit their
business today.
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