Transforming Retail With Virtual Reality (Nov 25, 2020)

This post is a recap of the Transforming Retail With Virtual Reality workshop held on Wed Nov 25, 2020 12–1pm ET.

Workshop Goal

Retail industry was one of the most severely impacted by the pandemic. It is also the one that stands to benefit the most with transformational opportunities. Technology and innovation are the cornerstone of business success in the COVID world. This event is a practical conversation at the intersection of possibilities and reality — how will Virtual Reality transform the retail experience for customers and businesses.

• Where do we stand today with retail landscape, since onset of pandemic — large vs. small-to-medium markets?
• What are the Virtual Reality applications in the real-world retail, and why should we care?
• What are the considerations for a successful transformation?

Speaker:

• Gunjan Syal — Chief Strategy Advisor, Emerald Technology Group Inc.

Discussion Summary

Visit transform this library for a full workshop recording and the material shared during the session.

• We began the discussion with a comparison of 2020 retail trends across Canadian and US markets. We had a great discussion around multiple segments.

Emerald Technology Group Inc.

• Next, we discussed the inclination towards avoiding crowded areas during the pandemic, in favour of safety. In such an environment, AR, VR, MR technologies can help retailers enable a new level of customer experience.
• We reviewed multiple examples of existing retail use cases. For example, the Home Depot and Ikea use cases:

• We reviewed data from Oct 2020: furniture industry stands to benefit the most from offering an AR customer experience. We also discussed AR, VR and MR applications beyond retail into exhibition industry, such as museums, office buildings and others.
• We compared a broad listing of many technology solutions available in market that enable AR, VR, MR use cases; serving both B2C and B2B markets.

Visit transform this library for a full workshop recording and the material shared during the session.

What’s Next?

Imagine your VR avatar, interacting with your friends’ avatars, shopping at a virtual grocery store, while simultaneously exercising on a treadmill from the safety of your home… Technology to enable this use case, along with a business case already exists.

I will host workshops in 2021 diving deeper into how enterprises can build business cases for these use cases, what foundational technologies are needed, how to map the desired customer journeys to the technology tools and capabilities needed to implement these solutions at scale within the enterprise.

• Join the tribe for the new workshop notifications so you don’t miss the conversations.
• Join the Super Tribe for full access to recordings and material from the past workshops, including discounts on future workshops and free monthly sessions with industry leaders.

Until we meet again in 2021 — stay healthy and enjoy the Holiday Season!

Sign up for innovation workshops hosted by ‘transform this’. Join the Super Tribe for a wealth of innovation and strategy resources, including full recordings from the past workshops and discounts on future workshops. Reach out to me for strategy, governance, planning thought leadership on post-COVID innovation efforts. I ensure business scalability and resilience.

© 2020 Emerald Technology Group Inc. All rights reserved.

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