Mirroring the paradigm shift that happened with the iPhone, the release of Apple’s Vision Pro augmented reality device the world has been put on notice that there is not only a new way to provide services and products that interact with their immediate environment but also a new tool that will simplify and optimize nearly every department in your company. From Apple’s first video highlighting the functions of its newest tech, it is pretty easy to see how the Vision Pro will change the way we interact with media, but there are numerous ways every department of any organization will be able to harness AR technology to maximize efficiency, increase clarity, and optimize their processes.
Let’s take a look at how 6 departments will see AR radically change the way they work:
Sales and Marketing:
Much to the chagrin of department stores, the ease of online shopping radically changed the way we shop for everything. One thing we lost from going to traditional brick-and-mortar merchants however was the ability to get our hands dirty and give the product the proper up-close-and-personal inspection. With augmented reality, customers can now virtually take a full 360-degree view of products and experience them further before they click “buy”. Interactive catalogs and virtual showrooms take things to the next level as they allow for supplementary information in the way of text, audio, and video to be made available on command and out of the eye-line of the product, thus adding to the customer’s immersion with the product and only provided until prompted for.
Although AR does not fully replace the tactile thrill of actually holding a product, it is a step businesses can make toward enhancing buyer confidence and getting items out of a customer’s shopping carts and on its way to fulfillment.
Human Resources Training and Development:
Real-time pop-up display screens within AR glasses will be the future of on-the-job training. These modules will overlay digital instructions, simulations, or step-by-step guides onto the real-world tasks new hires are employed to do, improving employee learning and performance and taking a layman to a specialist in less time. On the accounting side, AR training will vastly reduce the number of hours your business would have to account for versus if you had used live in-person training.
Imagine instead of hiring a specialist to come out and fix the printer (again), AR could be deployed to deliver real-time maintenance instructions and troubleshooting guidance to technicians and untrained staff, reducing errors and downtime.
Safety training will become more immersive, and dare I say it – adventurous. Imagine your next corporate safety day becoming an AR- simulated scenario in a controlled environment, allowing employees to practice safety protocols and mitigate hazards without real risks.
Design and Manufacturing:
R&D departments can now virtually test more iterations of a product, thus increasing prototyping and design. 3D virtual environments will allow for more iterations and testing, meaning that your business can now make more creative, cost-effective, and cutting-edge products with reduced costs via improved collaboration and a turbocharged design phase.
Assembly assistance is now right within the eyesight of every assembly worker with AR that overlays instructions for complex assembly processes. Having constant monitoring of individual assembly will take drastic steps in reducing errors, identifying inefficient processes, and improving the final product delivery for the end-user with a meticulous account of quality control.
Customer Support:
Ever opened up a box of assemble-it-yourself furniture and just been like “Nope”? Remote assistance via augmented reality will now overlay instructions and provide visual guidance for troubleshooting or repairs as if they were in the room with the customers. Self-service support modules powered by AI can also be developed to empower customers to resolve customer support issue independently by understanding their issue and prompting relevant information and tutorials.
Logistics and Inventory Management:
Warehouse and fulfillment centers will see a boon of help from AR headsets providing warehouse workers with real-time inventory information, in-depth location guidance, and accurate picking instructions for perfect fulfillment and packing every time, improving the two key parameters of measuring that department’s success: efficiency and accuracy.
Executive Leadership:
Leadership will now be able to utilize AR to provide a more hands-on (or hands-off) approach to remote meetings and supervision among their respective teams. Management will now be able to grab a face-to-face with any employee instantly and check in to remotely address, assess, and execute while they are away on other matters. Similarly, board and stockholder meetings will be enhanced by virtual meetings and presentations with interactive and personalized elements, graphs, and visual aids.
While we still are a few years out from AR becoming a part of everyday life, it’s best to get together now and think up how your organization can benefit from implementing augmented reality into your business strategy. If you are feeling stuck trying to figure out exactly what your team’s needs are, check out this article we recently posted on brainstorming exercises you can implement today to bring focus to your creative problems.
