VR is dead (again!)...no wait...hang on...what about enterprise VR?

The death of VR has been heralded so often that VR is starting to take on feline qualities with regard to the number of lives it seems to have.

It’s a great click-bait headline that some journalists and commentators like to roll out on a fairly regular basis. In jumping to this conclusion they have invariably focused on consumer adoption of VR, as it’s an easier fit with the “VR is dead” theme than researching further across the sector. 

When it comes to consumer adoption of VR it fits neatly into Amara's Law which states:

"We tend to overestimate the effect of a technology in the short run and underestimate the effect in the long run."

Pre-lockdown you couldn’t attend a conference without a speaker boldly posing the question, “What’s the killer app for VR?”. Whilst the great and good of technology commentary were focusing on consumer VR, the enterprise sector was quietly adopting the technology at a much more consistent rate.

About a year ago enterprise VR started to be mentioned more often than consumer VR, there was a slow realisation that cost of headsets and lack of content was less of an issue for enterprise. With some large enterprises using VR training for health and safety, the savings by avoiding serious accidents can be huge, quickly outweighing the cost of headsets or content creation.

So which sectors are driving the adoption of enterprise VR? Well health and safety procedures cover across a number of verticals, so you’re seeing adoption in sectors from FMCG , manufacturing, energy right through to healthcare. But, without the internal buy-in to adopting new technology it is almost impossible to get traction beyond an initial innovation driven pilot project. So who are some of the internal champions fuelling the VR adoption, at Nestle you have Richard Hess, at BP Anthony Del Barto and Walter Davis at Aggreko. (photo credit Alex Gonzalez)

Health and safety training is also a key focus in the armed forces, with a recent example being VR cargo loading training by the US Air Force. Working with Sketchbox3d they created a training scenario for C-5 transport aircraft operatives using the Oculus Quest 2, with some quite phenomenal results. 

• Total training time reduced by 25%
• Student throughput increased by 3.3X
• $100k hard cost savings per student
• 1000lbs of fuel saved per student

VR represents 9% of the total training course at present, but the US Air Force intends to use VR for 40% of the course in the future. 

However, what the results currently lack are more performance focused outcomes, are there less errors, do trainees retain the knowledge better and therefore need less training? When you are able to combine performance results with cost savings you have a very powerful argument in favour of the use of VR for training.

Health and safety training is an obvious fit for VR training, but other areas which are less obvious, such as soft skills training, are also starting to see increased adoption. As companies struggle to retain and up-skill employees, along with trying to deal with a transformative shift to remote working, they are increasingly looking to technology to solve some of these challenges. Companies like Talespin, BodySwaps and Make Real are focused on using VR for soft skills training, ranging from Diversity and Inclusion to leadership skills. I was initially sceptical of using VR for soft skills training, largely because it is so much harder to measure, but my view has shifted over the past year. Ways of measurement have improved substantially, and will only continue to improve with the use of biometrics and eye-tracking, enabling soft skills VR training to be measured in a much more tangible way.

So, to all those out there who are keen to proclaim the “Death of VR” I would advise you to take a broader look across both consumer and enterprise. Indeed, as headsets become cheaper, more content is available and the benefits of 5G kick-in, we may even have to consider using “VR is alive and well” for both consumer and enterprise.

NEXT: In my next article I’ll be looking into the impact VR is having on soft skills training and how it can be up to 3X more effective than traditional classroom training. Follow #theVRmarketer

I always try to present a balanced view of the benefits of immersive technology. As I think there are too many commentators (“Futurists”?) out there feeding the hype machine and over promising what VR, in particular, can deliver (back to Amara’s Law). But, if you think I err too far one way or the other, please feel free to call me out on it. Thanks.