Unlock the value of the industrial metaverse with change management

Organizations can gain immense benefits with the industrial metaverse by pairing responsible innovation with pragmatic change management.

The metaverse is poised to transform almost any industry; its industrial applications, in particular, can increase efficiency, reduce waste and costs by enabling companies to simulate and optimize processes, including manufacturing and supply chain activities in a virtual environment. It is a combination of human-driven and technology-powered solutions that merge physical and digital environments together with centralized data that could cover information from production plans to customer demand and supply chain.

While many organizations want to take advantage of it, managing adoption challenges due to stakeholder skepticism and fear of change will be critical to success.

While applications of the industrial metaverse may vary by specific industry and business model, there are some best practices that organizations should follow to reap the full benefits of the technology. In particular, business leaders need to develop a purposeful, results-driven, and paced approach to adopting the industrial metaverse that prioritizes trust and transparency among all stakeholders internally (including across functions, workforces, and executives). ) and outside (including vendors, customers and, as applicable, cloud service providers such as in the case of a production metaverse, for example) the enterprise. Additionally, upskilling the workforce will be critical to successful adoption.

See also: The industrial metaverse is actually starting to form

Addressing the major concerns of the industrial metaverse

Any adoption of emerging technologies requires change management, a framework that prepares and supports organizational members on how to achieve the desired transformation. Stakeholders often fear the unknown and prefer familiarity over uncertainty. It is imperative that business leaders help employees and other stakeholders understand, upskill and prepare them for anticipated changes and ensure they are supported in areas where there are still unknowns.

This begins with understanding the top concerns of employees and other stakeholders around two key hurdles in adopting the industrial metaverse: security and skills development.

PwCs Metaverse Survey found that both consumers and executives identify cybersecurity as THE the main concern holding them back from adoption. Compounding this concern is the fact that cybersecurity is not keeping pace with the development of the industrial metaverse. Therefore, business leaders must remain extremely vigilant with cybersecurity measures. They must develop a secure architecture (informed by up-to-date threat intelligence), implement new controls designed for digital assets, and secure their metaverse supply chains by rigorously evaluating contract and license terms and representations, and ensuring more monitoring accurate of all metaverse activity.

Skills management is another area that often sparks concerns about the industrial metaverse from employees, many of whom fear they don’t have the skills needed to make new technology work. Adding to these concerns, the technologies of the industrial metaverse are constantly evolving, making it difficult to identify the optimal security skills and tools required for successful operation.

Inevitably, technological transformation will require the development of new skills, as well as the adoption of new roles and responsibilities. It is important that the entire organization aligns with expectations, starting with leadership and cascading down to other key stakeholders, to ensure sustained business morale and results.

Cybersecurity apprehensions and upskilling for the industrial metaverse can slowly be brought down with balanced and transparent messaging that addresses risk and mitigation tactics ranging from the organizational to the individual level.

See also: There is gold in the hills of the Metaverse, but it must be mined carefully

Industrial metaverse implementation

While every organization is eager to deliver across the industrial metaverse, it is important that they implement technology with a thoughtful and pragmatic change management approach that is focused on business goals and that addresses any skepticism leaders may have, as well as mitigating risks. Adopting the technology to simply check a box and limit efforts and commitment to a particular manufacturing or operations team is not enough to sustain a successful foray into the industrial metaverse, nor will a company reap the benefits of the technology.

Based on business and strategic goals, this plan must be implemented gradually and carefully. The technologies and applications of the metaverse are rapidly evolving, so organizations must remain vigilant when implementing technology and other changes to ensure evergreen benefits, even in the face of new innovations. Additionally, a consistent approach provides flexibility for iterative experimentation and continuous improvements. As technology integrates into the organization, leaders can implement targeted adjustments and additional investments that make more sense based on initial results.

Importantly, these results cannot be fully achieved without an appropriate change environment focused on collaboration and continuous improvements. This means providing employee upskilling initiatives focused on maintaining a workforce and culture that is open to new technologies and continuous learning and development. These programs will demonstrate the possibilities opened up by the industrial metaverse, as well as increase confidence and belief in change.

See also: Here comes the industrial metaverse

Advantages of the industrial metaverse

By combining responsible innovation with a purposeful and pragmatic change management approach, organizations across all sectors can reap immense benefits with the industrial metaverse.

Despite the different use cases based on business models, all organizations can unlock improved collaboration capabilities. The post-pandemic world is far more dispersed, complex, and diverse than ever before, making remote collaboration enabled by the industrial metaverse invaluable for unifying workforces and tapping into distributed talent pools.

The industrial metaverse will also bring better skills enhancement capabilities. In fact, PwC found that when leveraging virtual and augmented reality for training, the time it took for employees to master a skill improved by 275%, which in turn increased confidence, focus and connectedness. emotional.

In addition to improving the employee experience, the industrial metaverse improves security both within the organization and for end users. For example, AR-enabled remote assistance could enable organizations to assist customers in risky situations, while also drawing on expertise from around the world.

Applications in all sectors

In particular, there are certain industries like manufacturing, engineering, and healthcare that are particularly positioned to benefit from the industrial metaverse.

For example, manufacturing often requires scarce raw materials. With a virtual simulation of a manufacturing facility, organizations can reduce waste of resources by modeling supply chain and logistics processes that are often fraught with inefficiencies.

Additionally, prototyping is often an inefficient and time-consuming process that engineers have to contend with. The industrial metaverse can solve resource challenges by enabling the creation of virtual models that don’t have to be built from scratch and can be adapted easily.

In the case of healthcare, the industrial metaverse has the potential to improve patient experiences, care delivery, and outcomes. These findings are driven by emerging concepts such as medical simulations for educational purposes and digital twins of human organs or bodies that can monitor health, identify disease early, and provide targeted medical responses.

Regardless of the type, size or function of an organization, the industrial metaverse will undoubtedly transform the way employees interact with each other and with customers and suppliers; decrease waste of core business processes; improve worker safety and accelerate the skills upgrading needed to reap the benefits of the industrial metaverse.

All of these benefits and more are available to organizations that prioritize stakeholder trust through risk mitigation and transparency, approaching technology transformation with a thoughtful, results-driven mindset.