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We see the metaverse as an intersection of immersive experiences across the augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) spectrums. Businesses can use it, as many already are, to enrich experiences, products, and services with virtual overlays for navigation and context. Others are creating new, fully immersive environments and finding a way to engage customers in them.

Behind these new experiences is not one but several technologies. Many of those metaverse-enabling technologies, like 5G, blockchain, and AI, have been maturing over time, and things that were once technically feasible but not practical have become more commercially available, more affordable, and more consumable, like ChatGPT.

Key trends

There has been a fundamental transition from closed centralized platforms, where users access free information in exchange for their data, to a connected, open, and immersive world known as Web 3.0, or Web3. An example is Roblox, which has nearly 50 million active users and a huge economy inside the metaverse.

There’s also a growing trend of users expecting to be compensated in some way for bringing their attention to a platform.

Who are the business users of the metaverse?

The typical image of a metaverse user as a gamer with a headset and dual hand controllers playing Fortnite isn’t wrong. But that image is overlooking a fast-rising wave of business adoption.

Consumer brands have been early and enthusiastic adopters. Take Gucci.The luxury-goods brand partnered with Roblox to launch Gucci Town, a digital destination on Roblox “dedicated to those seeking the unexpected and to express one’s own individuality and connect with like-minded individuals from all over the world.” Further, Gucci has built an immersive concept store that showcases rare pieces, fosters conversation across contemporary Gucci creators, and even offers digital collectibles for purchase.

Another top brand, Nike, is assembling a cohort of metaverse brand ambassadors by allowing users to create virtual products and monetize them on a Web3 platform called Swoosh. For its part, Nike can create physical products based on those designs. At last check, Nike had generated $185 million from NFT sales and trading royalties. The bottom line for these brands:  Their metaverse presence generates new revenue and increases brand exposure — a win-win.

In manufacturing, companies have seized opportunities for upskilling and training, for example by providing real-time guided build instructions in an assembly process, or “see what I see” expert assistance when someone is troubleshooting equipment. Mercedes-Benz has invested in AR-based metaverse experiences to upskill its service technicians in their dealerships by providing a virtual overlay to its products.

Other companies are looking at digital twins as a way to increase efficiency, reduce costs and optimize operations. For example, BMW has created a simulation of one of its assembly lines, which may enable it to simulate what may happen in a particular environment prior to pushing operations to the production floor.

Financial services also think the metaverse is “on the money.” JPMorgan Chase was the first to open a metaverse “branch” in Decentraland, and many other financial services brands are trying to figure out how to engage in the metaverse with customers, employees, partners, and other elements of their human ecosystems.

Further, evolution in the crypto space and digital wallets has boosted the ability to transact in the metaverse, with financial institutions — both traditional ones and startups — looking to capitalize on the metaverse economy.

How should companies proceed?

Successful companies stay focused on delivering products and services in any technology context. With this objective in mind:

Determine your organization’s innovation appetite (versus its risk appetite; it is too early to speak of ROI in the metaverse).

Align on a business objective for the metaverse: Are we trying to engage a specific customer population? Are we trying to improve efficiency? Are we trying to unlock a new market?

Create some use cases, keeping in mind the technological possibilities you have or feasibly can put in place. (Partnerships are an option.)

Set up a small, cross-functional team that has autonomy as well as guardrails in which they’re allowed to experiment, innovate, and play.

Protiviti is taking a deep dive into the metaverse on VISION by Protiviti. Learn more at vision.protiviti.com/metaverse.

Connect with the Authors

Christine Livingston
Managing Director, Emerging Technologies

Lata Varghese
Managing Director, Technology Consulting

Alex Weishaupl
Managing Director, Digital Transformation

Digital Transformation

Posted on Posted in Digital transformation, General topics Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , ,

The metaverse—a fast-emerging combination of technologies including augmented and virtual reality, IoT, and blockchain—is poised to change the way financial services organizations and other companies do business.   

“By blending the physical and the digital worlds, the metaverse is changing the rules of engagement and enabling us to connect without barriers,” says Anupam Singhal, a Senior Vice President at Tata Consultancy Services (TCS). “For financial institutions, it can transform the way they offer services and training, making them more convenient, engaging, accessible and inclusive.”   

Metaverse applications are developing quickly. According to Gartner, 25% of people will spend at least an hour in the metaverse by 2026. While financial institutions are starting to experiment with pilot programs, they must ensure that they have the right infrastructure and security protections in place to reap the full-scale benefits the metaverse has to offer.  

Innovative products and services 

In the metaverse, financial institutions can offer customers and employees personalized experiences that leave a lasting impression. For example, clients can hold virtual consultations with investment advisors across the globe and improve their financial knowledge by using 3D interactive tools. Financial institutions can also cater to underserved and underbanked customers with minimal to no charges.  

Employees, even the ones situated in isolated, remote locations, can take virtual tours and gain knowledge faster. TCS is developing an application, for example, that leads new employees on a lifelike journey through a bank’s corporate buildings and history as part of their onboarding experience. And with virtual training, employees can practice skills in a realistic, risk-free environment. 

Metaverse services can also help banks attract new customers.  

“We have a lineup of exciting projects, including creating a virtual bank for retail transactions and a non-fungible token marketplace using blockchain,” Singhal says. “We have already implemented augmented marketing and branding solutions in retail, and we are working on pilots in the business-to-business and business-to-consumer spaces.”  

A seamless, secure infrastructure 

To make these dynamic services possible, organizations must create digital replicas of the real world, supported by dedicated offerings on Microsoft Cloud. Seamless connectivity and extremely low latency, enabled by specialized graphics and edge processing, are also critical to providing vivid experiences and near-real time interactions.   

“With decentralized Web3 technology, users can also take advantage of peer-to-peer capabilities, running some tools and platforms on their devices instead of relying on the cloud,” Singhal says.  

In addition to creating ground-breaking experiences, the metaverse, like other emerging technologies, brings a new set of security challenges. Rogue actors could attempt to steal target NFTs and tokens, or use deepfake techniques to impersonate financial advisors. Personal data collected by AR and VR applications creates greater opportunities for identity theft.  

“We must rethink how we address data privacy and security in the metaverse,” Singhal says. “We need strong regulations like GDPR to define clear boundaries. We also need more security measures like multi-factor authentication and digital encryption to ensure secure experiences.”   

Getting started in the metaverse 

Every organization must carve its own path to the metaverse, a process that starts by examining existing technology and defining services to prioritize.   

“TCS has a successful history of helping businesses grow and transform through technology and make a meaningful difference. We can help leaders identify areas where they can improve, whether that means upgrading infrastructure, investing in new technology, or bringing in new talent. We can co-develop metaverse strategies that align with their business goals and objectives,” Singhal says.  

Organizations can then co-create experiences on the TCS AvapresenceTM platform, which uses blockchain, AI, AR, VR, and mixed reality technologies to address customer needs. For financial services companies, TCS has developed a specialized program that involves training their associates to become proficient in using several 3D engines and platforms to address industry challenges, including security, data privacy, and compliance concerns.   

Financial organizations that want to gain a competitive edge should get started soon.  

“Banks that offer virtual services are going to have a larger consumer mindshare, particularly among younger generations,” Singhal says. “By engaging with the right experts, leaders can break boundaries and take advantage of the metaverse’s limitless opportunities.” 

Learn how to master your cloud transformation journey with TCS and Microsoft Cloud. 

Financial Services Industry

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Migrate to the cloud, strengthen security, protect privacy, increase agility, advance automation, improve sustainability, optimise the budget … “explore the metaverse” is certainly on the to-do list for most CIOs, along with many, many other competing priorities. With the metaverse still in its infancy and an abundance of ambiguities making planning challenging and investment risky, it’s tempting to push it further down your list. However, delay too long, and you also risk giving yourself an insurmountable technological handicap if uptake in your industry suddenly accelerates. So, how should you handle this conundrum? I’d suggest a combination of design thinking, Agile practice, and lunch with your CMO, CCO and CHRO.

By applying design thinking methodology to the core metaverse capabilities (that is, thoroughly assessing their desirability, feasibility, and viability in relation to your business), you will quickly be able to identify potential use cases for both the short and long term. Feasibility is perhaps the simplest of these three lenses, as it’s fairly consistent across business types and sizes. Currently, equipment costs are high while comfort is low (even the most hardened gamers need a break after an hour or so fully kitted up), and accessible computing power is nowhere near where it will need to be. This will all be fixed, probably a lot faster than most of us expect. More competition and more manufacturers will lead to economies of scale and innovation – the rapid evolution of mobile phones and laptop computers gives us a potential trajectory. However, mobiles and laptops are also highly desirable and viable – are the various metaverse functionalities in the same league?

Some are well on their way. It’s easy to see how the use of personal digital twins in retail could revolutionize shopping or how building digital twins of large-scale manufacturing and logistics operations and infrastructure projects could save businesses – and taxpayers – significant time and money through real-time and AI-enhanced remote monitoring and projection capabilities. However, I’m still not convinced of the desirability and viability of the purely digital metaverse offerings.

Will the average member of Generation Alpha really pay hundreds or even thousands of dollars to dress their avatar in digital clothing and accessories? Will they be cajoling their parents to act as guarantors so they can buy their first digital home? While one of the precursors to the metaverse, SecondLife, proved in the short-term that such items could certainly be desirable (from 2003 to 2013 $3.2 billion in transactions for virtual goods were apparently exchanged between residents), long-term prospects are yet to be proven. Indeed, the one thing the SecondLife case study proves is that people are fickle. This is why a human-centered design-thinking approach to the metaverse is essential and, accordingly, why it’s prudent for you to work with the people who best know people.

Close collaboration with your CMO, CCO, and CHRO will give you the best chance at starting your metaverse journey in the right direction. As many of the strongest, simplest, and most cost-effective metaverse use cases relate directly to employee and customer experience, a strategic shared investment between these portfolios should yield benefits for all involved.

For example, we all know attracting and retaining top tech talent is currently a major challenge for many organizations. If you supported your CHRO to launch a staff training program within the metaverse, the chances are good your CMO could use this to help brand your organization as an innovative technology leader in the market. What kind of employees would such a brand attract? I think you can see the cycle.

Finally, let’s not forget the importance of an Agile approach throughout all of this. The benefits of the experimentation and iterative progression Agile enables are never more apparent than when we’re exploring uncertain and dynamic environments. Agile and people-focused, your fellowship will be able to take advantage of emerging opportunities while minimising risk and ultimately generate value from the metaverse for your employees, customers, and organisation, even in these early chapters.

Agile Development

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For the past forty years CIOs have labored to retrofit, rearchitect, and ultimately replace underfunded and underappreciated legacy infrastructures in hopes of delivering the full benefits associated with periodically occurring waves of transformative emerging technologies.

Debate now rages in IT and digital communities regarding what will be the seismic technological shift of the 2020s. Some argue the metaverse will be the next dominant computing platform. Despite lukewarm user demand for metaverse capabilities to date, the time is right for enterprises to be conducting experiments and prototypes in this potentially disruptive space.

Right now, the metaverse is essentially an undefined amalgam of technologies and concepts including but not limited to augmented reality (AR), avatars, blockchain, cryptocurrencies, extended reality (ER), mixed reality (MR), NFTs (non-fungible tokens), virtual reality (VR), and Web3.

To help CIOs figure out what they should be doing with the metaverse, I queried a select group of CXOs at large enterprises about their metaverse plans and immersed myself for several weeks digesting and synthesizing as much information as possible on the topic, including a series of exercises I posed on various social media platforms.

I asked executives to complete the sentence: “The metaverse is ______.” The responses covered the full spectrum ranging from total skepticism and hostility — e.g., “a bunch of really interesting ideas on a whiteboard, that probably won’t actually happen” — through mild interest to evangelical belief. Some believe the metaverse is “a thing, not necessarily the thing”; “evolutionary, not revolutionary”; and should be viewed “merely an extension and rebranding of virtual reality.” One breathless proponent insisted the metaverse is a “parallel virtual plane of existence,” while another claimed it was “a moral imperative.”

Observationally, most agree that the metaverse could be “a place,” that is, an environment where people spend time, and “a platform.” Most executives also believe the metaverse is definitely “a phenomenon” and might be “an opportunity.” At the least, it should be viewed as “the latest step in the overall digitalization of social activities,” most believe.

Follow the money

Research indicates that supply-side organizations are spending big on the metaverse. Meta Platforms, parent to Facebook, is spending approximately US$10 billion per year on metaverse initiatives and plans to continue doing so for the foreseeable future.

Goldman Sachs sees potential for the metaverse to grow into a US$8 trillion market by 2025. Morgan Stanley and Bank of America are also bullish on the metaverse’s prospects.

Still, when asked what images, thoughts, and impressions come to mind when they think about the metaverse, most executives told me they say the metaverse being no different from the early 2000s conception of wearing a VR headset and haptic suit while driving a flying car to your perfect pretend mansion in a soothingly sanitized alternate reality.

If that’s the conception, it’s little wonder few CIOs have spent serious time thinking of the possibilities for their enterprises.

It’s helpful, at times, to think of any new technology using a train metaphor: Someone must invent the train (i.e., the new technology); someone must lay the tracks; and someone must ride the train for the invention’s potential to be fully realized. This last group represents those who buy and deploy the technology — a seat set squarely for the CIO.

I asked executives to place themselves on a spectrum of:

There is no trainThere is a train and I should probably be on itThe train has already left the station and I am behind

Most executives placed themselves somewhere beyond “there is no train” and closer to “there is a train and I should probably be on it.”

A heavily networked CIO at a major energy company explained, “None of the corporates are playing with it and it’s still pretty fringe outside of the Facebooks of the world.” The former managing director of a major venture capital firm admitted, “Metaverse, I am not even a tourist in that world.” And a Texas tech magnate insisted, “I know lots of smart people and none of them can even spell metaverse.”

So, if the potential is something that can be realized, perhaps IT leaders will soon find themselves in the third group, having been left behind, if they don’t start investigating soon.

Get on the train

As with any emerging technology it is never a bad idea to ask, “What problem might this new technology solve?”

Mike Conley, CIO and senior vice president of the Cleveland Cavaliers and Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse, is doing exactly the right thing regarding the metaverse.

He is experimenting and prototyping in the metaverse space seeking to engage the 99% of fans who will never actually attend a game. The Cleveland Cavaliers basketball team as a brand has more than 30 million followers globally. Historically, the primary focus for sports organizaitons has been on the 1% of fans that physically come inside the arena.

The metaverse has the potential to change that.

Emerging Technology