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Though we spend ample time examining consumer-based XR endpoints, greater near-term impact is seen in the enterprise. This includes brands that use AR to promote products in greater dimension (B2B2C) and industrial enterprises that streamline their own operations (B2B).
These industrial endpoints include visual support in areas like assembly and maintenance. The idea is that AR’s line-of-sight orientation can guide front-line workers. Compared to the “mental mapping” they must do with 2D instructions, visual support makes them more effective.
And with VR, employee training and onboarding can be elevated through immersive sequences that boost experiential learning and memory recall. It also scales, given that far-flung employees can get the same quality training, versus costly travel for senior training staff.
Altogether, there are micro and macro benefits to enterprise XR. The above micro efficiencies add up to worthwhile bottom-line impact when deployed at scale. Macro benefits include lessening job strain and closing the “skills gap,” which can preserve institutional knowledge.
But how is this materializing today, and who’s realizing enterprise XR benefits? Our research arm ARtillery Intelligence tackled these questions in a recent report. It joins our report excerpt series, with the latest below on Moscow Trade Center’s use of AR to streamline facilities management.
Stretched Thin
Moscow Trade Center is one of the world’s largest shopping facilities with 6,000 stores. This presents logistical challenges, including 1,500 monthly tenant requests (think: plumbing and electrical issues). This can be a big cost center, driving an urge to streamline wherever possible.
Specifically, given its scale of operations, Moscow Trade Center was eager to establish more intelligent and streamlined ways to manage all of these tenant requests. Doing so was a key goal due to potential cost savings and operational efficiencies, as well as tenant satisfaction.
The latter is a key metric that drives retention and occupancy rates. So the company looked to AR, specifically deploying Resonai’s Vera software. As background, Vera is built to manage operations and maintenance in physical spaces, as well as optimize retail stores for customer experiences.
Moscow Trade Center utilized the former, including managing its maintenance and repair ticketing system. Utilizing existing data sources like building blueprints and 3D maps, it was able to develop step-by-step AR line-of-sight instructions for technicians to do things like reset fuse boxes.
High Stakes
And the results? Moscow Trade Center was able to reduce repair time by 44 percent and lower operational costs by staffing fewer technicians. Its new capabilities also drove it to extend commercial operating hours each day by 30 minutes, which positively impacted tenant revenue.
Stepping back, this case study represents an enterprise AR use case that we haven’t examined yet: facilities management. This demonstrates AR’s ability to continue expanding into new use cases and verticals. This is a particularly high-stakes use case for all the reasons stated above.
But beyond potential value and cost/time savings, AR fits naturally in facilities management. The technology has demonstrated that it can help streamline and uplevel many of the field’s core functions, such as maintenance. And it does so by utilizing and piggybacking on existing IoT data.
The next step could be the other function teased above – customer-facing AR for retailers. This gets more to the marketing side of things, such as virtual try-ons, but likewise has high-stakes value if it can grow retailer revenues and customer basket sizes… a different article.
We’ll pause there and pick things up in the next case study with more enterprise AR best practices and tactical takeaways…
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