Metaverse, the next iteration of the internet, proposes an absolutely new way of curating, consuming, and sharing any kind of information. In its recent report, Mckinsey states that in the initial five months of 2022, companies have invested more than $120 billion in building the metaverse infrastructure. The possibilities are endless. By seamlessly bridging the physical and the virtual world, the metaverse could revolutionize everything from shopping and employee relations to gaming and more.

The race to stake a prime position and emerge as a leader in embracing the metaverse has begun. The danger for companies that hesitate to explore this new arena is that they might end up operating in one or many virtual worlds built in accordance with the preferences or priorities of competitors.

The promise of the metaverse

Metaverse is an interconnected virtual reality, intertwined with our physical world creating immersive experiences. Gamers already know this, but others are beginning to see its potential beyond entertainment. Goldman Sachs foresees an $8 trillion opportunity in the revenue and monetization of the metaverse. Let's look at some use cases where the application of metaverse can transform the mundane into exciting:

• Metaverse onboarding: Currently, the new employee receives a bunch of links they go through to familiarize themselves with the company. That can be tedious—the curiosity dies rather quickly. Imagine if they could walk through a virtual campus, with each building showcasing a division's exciting work. Or they could explore the company's history by entering a company museum instead of reading copious documents 
• Learning and training: These have largely settled into the "Watch Video-Answer the Quiz" format. People often do them because they have to. Adding the virtual dimension could turn this chore into an experience
• Metaverse collaboration: Currently, this means staring at the laptop with headphones on ears and maybe some whiteboarding. A three-dimensional virtual world can open up new ways for people to work together
• More access: The senior management could keep their doors open for a bit in the virtual world, allowing employees greater access to management.
• Virtual building: The service desk, too, could be a virtual building where an employee's avatar walks in, gets the ticket, and waits in the queue. And they interact with other avatars while doing so. In fact, in many cases, they can help each other solve their problems

All of these could substantially improve employee experience, which in turn would help drive engagement and retention.

The conundrum

The investments and their association with gaming and social entertainment threaten to overshadow and even derail the application of metaverse in the enterprise environment. Business leaders, usually the first to be exposed to new technologies within a company, might find it gimmicky after the initial excitement fades.

The learning curve is steep and training quickly becomes obsolete. Mastering different technologies requires intensive training, yet knowledge obsolescence is high as technology is not mature. For example, the basics of interacting with information such as gestures and motions keeps evolving all the time.

Secure access is another concern. The underlying platforms built by Facebook and others are geared for the masses and do not support enterprise-level security with SSO or access AD credentials. Besides, all devices need to be managed centrally in an enterprise environment, but tools such as Big Fix or Intune might not be able to manage all the functionalities this early.

Add to that, an expensive investment in immersive devices, and the security implications of extending enterprise data over metaverse platforms, and the challenge, could prove too daunting.

Metaverse simplified

But what if there was an easier, less capital-intensive, and more secure way of leveraging the metaverse?

What if you could turn to your laptop or mobile—instead of a VR headset—and access it using your enterprise credentials? No significant training, no additional devices. And even then, you could get much of the experience and all the features.

Doesn't that open the door to exciting possibilities and make it easier for your workforce to taste what the metaverse has to offer?

Virtuality – An attempt by HCL Tech to democratize metaverse

Metaverse is complex, specialized, and capital-intensive. With Virtuality, it isn’t.

Metaverse opens the door to exciting possibilities and immersive experiences by seamlessly bridging the physical and the virtual world

Virtuality is an easy-to-use, install-and-play application that can be run on any device with zero dependence on expensive VR headsets. Branding and advertising-friendly with customizable avatars make virtual events fun and interactive. SSO-based secure access helps enterprises to stay on top of their security. The application supports various content formats, including images, videos, screen share, documents, PPTs, and more. With one-click customizations, users can host their virtual meets as they want.

Need a cost-effective passage to metaverse? Then, Virtuality is the door to knock on.

Participate on-the-go from any device with a customized avatar and experience a sustainable way to resource-intensive activities.

For further queries on the application, get in touch with our experts: <DWP@hcl.com>