The Business Bytes
PRIYADARSHI NANU PANY
Just think what jobs your kids will do as they dip their feet into the future of a digital-first world. It is estimated that nearly two-thirds of today’s children will be absorbed in professions we are unversed with. And a good proportion of those jobs will populate the Metaverse. Many have billed Metaverse as the future of the internet. But the clout of this virtual ecosystem of creators, business owners, consumers and entrepreneurs doesn’t limit to a game-changing online user experience (UX). A decade or a sesquidecade (15 years) from now, Metaverse will disrupt every business as every business will be on the Metaverse. Sounds like hyperbole or an overly bullish exaggeration? Possibilities abound, and numbers speak of a disruptive Phygital world that Metaverse will unwrap in the future.
Big Tech is investing billions to get users hooked
Metaverse technology platforms are poised to become a lucrative market valued at $800 billion by 2024, per a December 2021 Bloomberg report. Research by Gartner claims that by 2026, 25 per cent of the people worldwide will spend at least an hour a day on the Metaverse. For Big Tech companies, FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) on these potential megabucks is in itself a big motivator! Meta, Microsoft, Google, Apple, Amazon, SAP, NVidia, and Disney are investing billions of dollars in shepherding the future of Metaverse. Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg recently disclosed to shareholders that the company invested $10 billion in Metaverse in 2021. Even companies known for legacy business models like Siemens, BMW, and Daimler overlay their products and services with Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) to create immersive experiences for customers. Metaverse is projected as a $1 trillion revenue opportunity by the end of this decade.
Metaverse for business – intersecting marketing & branding opportunities
Metaverse for business means the creation and launch of 3D environments for companies. An enterprise Metaverse is something organizations can change and control to suit their needs. VR settings are becoming a popular place for brands to create a presence. On the gaming platform Roblox, Hyundai Motor Company debuted Hyundai Mobility Adventure, a Metaverse experience. Players’ avatars can experience Hyundai’s future mobility projects and current products. And last year, Warner Bros. Pictures hosted a virtual party on Roblox to market its movie In the Heights. DP World, a global end-to-end logistics provider, recently announced DP METAWORLD, a new initiative to bring cutting-edge virtual solutions to real-world supply chain challenges.
Metaverse brings with it a plethora of possibilities and the promise of token economies. In engineering, you can design and test your machine first on the Metaverse before manufacturing it. It’s the reverse of Digital Twin technology as the physical asset is modelled on the digital original. Powered by the Metaverse, companies are tapping into new revenue streams by selling goods and services that only exist in the digital world.
Gucci has teamed up with product and entertainment company Superplastic to create a limited series of collectible NFTs (Non-Fungible Tokens). Users can invest in NFT avatar drops, like those offered by Nike or Adidas. They can also speculate on virtual land or in-game items, like those offered on Axie Infinity, Decentraland and The Sandbox.
The future – Fuelling the cross-over economy
Metaverse has enabled people to buy physical items in virtual spaces. But when we speak of Metaverse as a whopping $1 trillion revenue opportunity, we start looking at commerce beyond just virtual-to-virtual commerce and think of tapping the physical-to-virtual and virtual-to-physical commerce and unlocking them at scale. Over the next decade, when the Metaverse matures as a platform for businesses, we can imagine it as a fragmented marketplace with no dominant player but overwhelming consumer choices. While consumer adoption is expected to soar, especially in gaming, sports, entertainment and retail, enterprise applications will be limited mostly to team collaboration, virtual conferences, augmented training/learning, and immersive digital twins. Metaverse can emerge as the biggest opportunity for modern business since the creation of the internet. It’s the next evolution of digital platforms. People will experience a new ecosystem of Extended Reality where real blurs with the virtual. Over to the future of (Virtual) Reality!
The author is the Founder & CEO of CSM Technologies
