The metaverse The topic is everywhere, but few people are experts on it and organisations are wondering if they need to pay attention to it. Could something so hyped, so seemingly ‘unreal,’ even matter to their business? The short answer: yes.
In fact, several metaverse concepts are already becoming concrete. Others will soon. Many companies are investing, aiming to deepen customer loyalty, engage in new ways with their communities and grow revenue. The metaverse promises options to enrich customer experience, create virtual-only products and market physical and digital products and services. It will do all this with its own payments and financial systems and of course will need hardware and applications to support all these activities.
For business, the implications of an immersive, persistent and decentralised digital world could be enormous.
Yet there’s reason for wariness, too. The metaverse is suddenly hot, even though the underlying technology trends have been underway for years. As in the internet’s early days, this innovation likely contains pockets of speculation, overvaluation and unwise investment — especially since a true metaverse, as tech visionaries imagine it, is still years away. Not every company needs to become a metaverse leader today.
The good news is, it’s possible to separate the reality from the hype: understand what the metaverse is really about and take practical, affordable steps to meet your company’s needs.
Choose your own adventure
The metaverse promises, among other things, a stunningly realistic 3D digital world where you can purchase and sell goods and services, sign and enforce contracts, recruit and train talent, and interact with customers and communities. As some technology visionaries imagine the metaverse, this world won’t primarily run on platforms whose owners control data, governance and transactions. Instead, customers (and businesses) will be able to take their identities, currencies, experiences and assets anywhere they wish. Much of this digital world will persist even when no one is in it.
One way to think of the metaverse, therefore, is as a set of opportunities your company can select from to narrow focus. Technology trends – such as blockchain-based currencies, digital identities, virtual immersive realities – are now converging and these concepts will be its foundation. Most are not yet fully mature and the full value of true convergence is still unrealised by most organisations.
Yet some are already solid enough that they can grow existing lines of business and create new ones. Companies in retail, real estate, and entertainment are already investing and earning profits.1,2,3 For other, less mature metaverse components, getting in at the start will help your company be ready for however the metaverse may evolve. Either way, these components require an attention to trust and values — without care, this new digital world could exacerbate socioeconomic disparities.
When assets, transactions and identities simultaneously exist in physical and digital worlds that billions of people and organisations share, the old ways of building and sustaining trust may no longer apply.
Source by www.pwc.com.au
