Accelerating time to market

Product design and development are extremely complex, so bringing products to market takes a lot of time. Developing autonomous vehicle technology, for example, requires large amounts of computing time and resources. And testing the technology in physical environments can be prohibitively expensive or dangerous. 

Using XR, enterprises can not only accelerate product design and development but also reduce costs. Testing autonomous vehicle technology in repeatable virtual environments means less crashes of a real car during testing, less LIDAR equipment needed, and less material wastage. Once optimal results are achieved, the autonomous technology can be further tested on real vehicles.

XR can also help enterprises create and iterate prototypes faster, implementing user feedback in real time to deliver tailored products that meet customer needs.

Making sales easier

When you're selling complex products, it’s not always possible to let customers “try before you buy”. For example, remote medical operating theater equipment is complex, expensive and typically not available for demos. And even if you can perform a demo, it requires scheduling, travel, and setup that increase costs at the vendor and customer side.  

Creating a VR experience, however, reduces sales complexity and improves conversion rates by allowing customers to visualize all possible options in real time. This saves costs on the customer side and helps customers make better informed decisions by validating their assumptions and concerns. And on the vendor side, it creates more opportunities to cross-sell accessories, supplies, and supporting products.

Improving training to reduce costs and revenue loss

Traditional training with books, rote memorization, crude mockups, and PowerPoints can’t keep up with enterprise complexity. Even if training is available digitally, the materials are often out of date because products are constantly changing. People with expertise have limited time to train others, and there are constant interruptions to work as people get directions or cross-check diagrams and schematics, increasing costs and impeding revenue generation. 

With XR technologies, on the other hand, instructions can be overlaid on the job, helping trainees learn faster and make better decisions. For example, trainees using AR at a Boeing assembly facility completed tasks in 35% less time than trainees using traditional 2-D drawings and documentation.  Plus, with AR tools training can be monitored, tracked, and repeated faster and more cost-effectively.  

Delivering on-demand expertise to improve safety and reduce downtime

A shortage of skilled workers has a huge impact on productivity and safety, with errors leading to expensive downtime and dangerous safety incidents that can bring operations to a halt. And as employees with expertise retire, it’s increasingly difficult and expensive to replace the lost knowledge.

But with XR technologies, enterprises are finding new ways to help employees navigate operational complexity and reduce cost and risk. GE, for example, saved $1.6 billion by using digital twins for remote turbine monitoring, and many other utilities are already using AR to improve employee safety and reduce errors and downtime.

Three steps to managing enterprise complexity

Enterprise complexity can’t be eliminated, but it can be managed with XR technologies. Some organizations have already come a long way on their XR  journey; others are just starting out. 

The goal for all enterprises should be to move away from being an “unextended digital business” purely focused on developing and improving core products and toward creating an XR immersive ecosystem. To get there, enterprises must pass through three stages of XR maturity (see XR maturation cycle diagram below).

Thoughtworks has a proven record of helping leaders manage enterprise complexity with XR by reducing costs and improving productivity and safety.  Additionally, as businesses consistently build as many use cases as possible – this exciting new technology has the potential to 'be anything' leaders want.