A systematic approach to help companies get started
Technological innovations play a vital role in an increasingly digital world. The metaverse is one such innovation – a convergent virtual reality that brings people from all over the world together and offers businesses a whole host of new opportunities. The metaverse has the potential to usher in a new, post-mobile Internet era. It is often referred to as the walk-in Internet because it merges the physical and virtual worlds and enables immersive interaction between users. The challenge for businesses is to familiarize themselves with and assess this emerging technology so that they can harness its potential and avoid falling behind the competition. However, people still have a very limited understanding of the metaverse and its prospective commercial applications. Consequently, many businesses don’t know how to go about developing the right metaverse strategy for their particular needs. To address this, Professor Dr. Markus Weinberger, Steinbeis Entrepreneur at the Steinbeis Transfer Center for Digital Expertise, partnered with experts from P3 group GmbH to develop a methodology for identifying ways in which businesses can leverage the metaverse.
Today, businesses across every industry are confronted with the challenge of understanding how the metaverse might affect their business models and processes and how it could help them gain a competitive edge. The metaverse is a potential game-changer in many areas, whether it be enhancing the customer experience, tapping into new sales channels or revolutionizing the workplace.
Step one: building expertise
There are four stages in the development of a metaverse strategy. The first step involves building expertise. This is where the foundations are laid to enable subsequent discussions between decision-makers. It is vital to identify the right people for the process being embarked on. Peppard and Ward’s strategy team composition principles can provide a useful basis for getting the right team together. As well as recommending a diverse team, they also suggest recruiting a senior management sponsor and establishing a steering committee [1].
Addressing one of the current challenges, Steinbeis expert Markus Weinberger explains that “The metaverse is a new field and doesn’t have a standard definition yet. So it’s important to build an identical shared understanding of it within the business”. For this step, it’s essential to understand the general prospective uses of the metaverse and associated technologies. Workshops are organized to build this expertise within the company, with external experts being brought in if necessary. Market analyses and benchmarking are also carried out in order to gain an overview of the market and the competition. In addition, the business can develop its own technology radar or use an existing one to help evaluate the current stage of development. The Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action regularly publishes one such report [2].
Initial assessment and goal-setting: where do we currently stand?
Stage two is the initial assessment and goal-setting stage, where the learnings from stage one are built on by adding the business’s internal perspective. Before any meaningful objectives can be defined, it is advisable to carry out a Digital Maturity Assessment [3] and document all the business’s current digital activities in an asset sheet [4].
The Digital Maturity Assessment evaluates the business’s current digital maturity level by carrying out a qualitative assessment of different categories. Listing all current digitalization activities helps to ensure that the metaverse initiatives are integrated with the overarching digitalization initiatives and projects. “It is important to keep the convergence of different technologies in mind and avoid a silo mentality”, stresses Philipp Eiler, Senior Management Consultant at the P3 group. Once the internal analyses have been completed, the information gathered can be used to define realistic strategic objectives and success factors for meeting them.
The objectives should be set in consultation with senior management. The OGTM (Objectives, Goals, Tactics, Metrics) method or a traditional SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) analysis can help to describe the objectives and summarize the analysis findings.
What’s the point of identifying use cases?
After defining the strategic objectives, the next step is to identify and evaluate use cases. It is absolutely vital to include employees in this stage, since they have the process and operational knowledge and technical expertise needed to assess a use case’s real value. First of all, the potential uses are identified through interviews and workshops. A design thinking approach is recommended, since it has the advantage of putting the user’s needs at the center and guiding the process in a targeted manner [5].
Potential use cases can be divided into two broad categories:
- optimization of internal processes (e.g. training/onboarding, meetings and events, digital twins) and
- new customer propositions (e.g. marketing, new products, business models, service enhancements)
How to go about defining roadmaps
Finally, stage four involves modularization and the definition of roadmaps. This is where the details of how to implement the chosen use cases are determined. It is advisable to define several escalation levels. This makes it possible to subdivide the individual projects into stages in order to ensure structured adjustments and decision-making.
Digital twins in production are one example. Instead of immediately setting about producing a virtual 3D model of the entire production system, you can start with individual machines that are currently due to be replaced. Alternatively, you can begin by installing sensors to collect data for dashboards that provide an initial overview of your production line. It is especially important to ensure that the milestones and escalation levels have concrete targets and measurables. This allows continuous evaluation of success, and ensures that any necessary adjustments can be implemented systematically and that unsuccessful use cases can be ended early.
There is a danger that long-term projects involving major investments can become obsolete while they are still being implemented. Many chatbot projects suddenly found themselves in this predicament when they were superseded by much more powerful AIs. The faster you are able to react in these situations, the lower the risk of investing extensive resources to no avail. It is also vital to choose the right suppliers and partners for implementing the strategy. Once these preparations have been completed, it is time to proceed with the implementation phase.
Success factors: that’s how you do it!
Several different success factors are key to the successful development and implementation of a metaverse strategy. One requirement is an open corporate culture that is receptive to new ideas. This includes a willingness to see past the current technological limitations and embrace future digital developments. The metaverse is an unstoppable phenomenon that should be seen as an opportunity, even if the technology still has its limitations at this point in time.
Support from senior management is also key to success. This includes providing the necessary budgetary and personnel resources and establishing structures for assessing and rating new technologies. Facilitating spaces to try things out ties in directly with this by making it possible to build up experience and gain familiarity with the metaverse before any major investments are made.
It can also be useful to bring in external experts if the business currently lacks the necessary expertise or if assistance is needed to develop the strategy. This external support can also help with setting clear objectives for the strategy.
In the not too distant future, businesses wishing to use the metaverse as a strategic tool may face the challenge of striking the right balance between the possibilities offered by the technology and their target groups’ actual needs. As well as developing technologies and applications, it will be crucial to put people at the center, focusing on how they want to experience and use the metaverse. This is key to achieving acceptance of the identified use cases so that they can add value for businesses and users alike.
Contact
Prof. Dr. Markus Weinberger (author)
Steinbeis Entrepreneur
Steinbeis Transfer Center for Digital Expertise (Gaimersheim)
https://digitalexpertise.eu
Philipp Eiler
Senior Management Consultant
P3 group GmbH (Stuttgart)