Why should my company (B2B) care about Metaverse? &

How to identify Metaverse-inspired opportunities?

Due to the great interest and importance of Metaverse, Industrial Metaverse, Industrial Metaverse for Sales, etc., Rightsourcing continues its series of articles to create a deeper understanding of the topic. What does metaverse really mean with all its facets? Is it just the next buzzword? Does it affect our lives? How is it affecting our lives? Will it change our work? What must companies do? What is the best way to deal with this?

<Continuing unraveling the Metaverse series, let’s now explore the reasons why Metaverse is important to your company.>

– A contribution by Suchi Shinde & Prof. Dr. Markus Hesse, June 2023

Figure 1: Opportunities in a Metaverse – now and the Future

“By 2026, 30% of the organizations in the world will have products and services ready for metaverse. Enterprises will have the ability to expand and enhance their business models in unprecedented ways by moving from a digital business to a metaverse business.” said Resnick from Gartner/1/

The metaverse offers businesses exciting opportunities to shape a digital future with unprecedented innovation. Put simply, it represents the evolution of interaction between the virtual and physical realms, taking it to a whole new level.

Are any of these of relevance to your company?

Figure 2: Areas of use cases in Metaverse

Leaders, if you responded positively to any of the above, it is crucial for you to contemplate the metaverse as a significant trend that will unlock opportunities and stimulate strategic business innovations that extend beyond technology.

As per Gartner, different aspects of Metaverse could add value to these key functions in your organization. The key functions of Customer Service, Brand Building (need new customers), Training/Internal Events, Marketing Events, Interactive Meetings, and Sales can be moved to the next level of maturity and can be developed to become a differentiator in the B2B world.

If any of these key functions in your organization play a critical role and you want to add value, here are the TOP opportunities to explore how.

Figure 3: Opportunities for B2B in Metaverse, Rightsourcing’s adaptation from Gartner

Digital humans are interactive representations driven by AI. They have some human-like characteristics, personality, knowledge, and way of thinking. They can be seen as digital twins, digital avatars, humanoid robots, or conversational user interfaces. These digital humans can understand speech, gestures, and images, and they can also produce their own speech, tone, and body language. These add value to customer service functions, support, and sales, especially for customers in time zones where real people are offline. They can be used for Brand building and clarifying simple product and service-related queries and conducting short standard training.

Even though the technology here is still nascent and limited, simple and effective applications such as Bots and Chatbots can be seen in a real-life implementation at the Rightsourcing website.

Figure 4: The chatbot is ready to share information with visitors at www.rightsourcing-gmbh.com

Gaming – The metaverse will employ gaming technologies, methods, development tools, and theories to craft experiences for both entertainment and training simulations. (For details, read the earlier article from Rightsourcing : What is the connection between Gaming, Metaverse and Work?) The Gaming environment is also being used for Brand building. Many companies want to position themselves as an innovative, future-oriented brand and a related association and experience in gaming helps builds that association. It can also be used for implementing interactive and immersive training. In fact, the gaming technologies will also develop significantly due to its influence on metaverse technologies.

Virtual space, also known as a virtual world, is a computer-generated environment that allows individuals to gather using personalized avatars or holograms. These virtual spaces engage various senses and enable participants to fully immerse themselves and interact with the space. Virtual Spaces are used for products or solutions displays in a much more immersive and real-life environment, especially for customers who are unable or unwilling to join direct engagements, essentially to increase customer reach. It can also be used to expand user experience of the real-life events much longer in the Virtual world or even host only Virtual Events.

This has the potential to increase opportunities from event participants by 25% in 2024. /2/

Figure 5: Digital Avatar 3D environment for meetings at CEO Lounge of Rightsourcing

Shared Experiences gather individuals in a virtual environment, fostering a sense of togetherness. The metaverse, on the other hand, will enable shared experiences to transcend applications, events, and services. The quality of Shared Experiences in meetings and events can be much more enhanced due to its immersive nature. This will be a key tool in the Digital sales journey, an essential and critical step, which most B2B companies are still trying to master.

Spatial Computing integrates physical and digital elements to digitally enhance real-world spaces. This integration enables organizations to maximize the potential of both physical and digital assets by effectively blending interconnected, unseen digital information. Spatial Computing (based on Augmented Reality) will help Sales by providing enhanced, guided, and made more real-life-like buying experiences.

A real example where a digital sonography instrument can be projected in your own room in real-time to evaluate the status of the future world (post-purchase) is a use case implemented at Rightsourcing.

Figure 6: Augmented Reality element in the 3D viewer in your phone (link to view on your own phone https://rightsourcing-gmbh.com/showroom-gesundheit)

Tokenized Assets present fresh business models for creators of content. Within metaverse encounters, the majority of tokenized assets will utilize non-fungible token technologies (NFTs).

Tokenized Assets provide a means to establish digital ownership, create virtual economies, and enable commerce within the metaverse. They offer opportunities for users to monetize their activities, investments, and creations within virtual worlds while leveraging the benefits of blockchain technology for transparency, security, and decentralized control. Because no single vendor will own the metaverse, Gartner expects it to have a virtual economy enabled by digital currencies and nonfungible tokens (NFTs).  NFTs possess the potential to push innovative economic models by incorporating metaverse-enabled features and functionalities. This, in turn, will stimulate novel approaches to compete and generate revenue from both virtual and tangible goods and services.

The Metaverse is evolving at a rapid pace. Here is a quick view of how the landscape looks like with Metaverse innovators, adopters, and the rest of the industry players.

Figure 7: Metaverse Evolution Spectrum, Gartner.

Today emergent metaverse is in its infancy; however, the use cases and business outcomes will drive the adoption innovatively. Organizations should consider cautiously investing in the metaverse, or at the very least explore it in detail because their digital future may be molded by it. To leverage the chances in the metaverse, leaders should explore and identify opportunities inspired by the metaverse and build metaverse products and solutions. They should foster partnerships, invest in research and development, and address ethical considerations.

The metaverse has the potential to drive significant business innovations and create new opportunities beyond technology. Leaders who recognize and embrace this trend can position their organizations for success in the future digital landscape.

If you are ready to enter the world of Metaverse and want to discuss how let’s catch up in our Metaverse lounge https://rightsourcing-gmbh.com/metaverse-ceo-lounge

References:

/1/ Metaverse will be used by 25% of people by 2026: Gartner, February 22, 2022, https://tradearabia.com/news/IT_393368.html (accessed on 28.6.2023)

/2/ Resnick, M., Build a Digital Future: The Metaverse, 2023

To read earlier articles on the Metaverse series, visit our Library or click on the links below:

1- What is the metaverse?

2- What is the impact of the Metaverse on our lives?

3a- Is Metaverse the future? Part A

3b- Is Metaverse the future? Part B

4- Can Metaverse reshape our work?

5- What is the connection between Gaming, Metaverse and Work?