6 ways to prepare your business for the metaverse

A metaverse Although the subject is prevalent, few people are experts on it, and organizations are still determining whether they should pay attention to it. Could something so publicized and ‘unreal’ even be relevant to their industry? The quick response is yes.

Several metaverse development concepts are already taking physical form. Soon, others will. Many businesses are investing to increase revenue, deepen customer loyalty, and engage with their communities in novel ways. Options to improve customer experiences, develop virtual-only products, and market the metaverse promises both physical and digital goods and services. It will carry out all of this using its payment and financial systems and support all of these operations, hardware, and applications that are unavoidably required.

An immersive, persistent, and decentralized digital world may affect business.

But there is also cause for caution. Even though the underlying technological trends have been present for years, the metaverse is currently very popular. Since a true metaverse, as tech visionaries envision it, is still years away. This innovation contains pockets of speculation, overvaluation, and foolish investment, similar to the early internet. Today, only some businesses need to emerge as metaverse leaders.

The good news is that it’s possible to tell fact from fiction by understanding the metaverse and taking realistic, cost-effective measures to meet your company’s needs.

Choose your adventure.

The metaverse promises, among other things, a breathtakingly realistic 3D digital world where you can buy and sell goods and services, sign and enforce contracts, find and develop talent, and communicate with clients and communities. The metaverse will run on something other than platforms whose owners control data, governance, and transactions, as some technology visionaries envision. Customers (and companies) will instead be able to take their identities, currencies, experiences, and assets wherever they please. Even when no one uses this digital world, much of it will still exist.

As a result, one way to conceptualize the metaverse is as a range of options from which your business can choose to focus. These ideas will be the foundation for emerging technology trends, such as blockchain-based currencies, digital identities, and immersive virtual realities. Most organizations still need to fully understand the value of true convergence because most still need to develop fully.

Some are already stable enough to expand their current business lines and start new ones. Retail, real estate, and entertainment businesses have already begun to invest and make money. 1,2,3 Getting in at the beginning will help your business be prepared for however the metaverse may develop for other, less developed metaverse components. In either case, these elements demand consideration of trust and values; without caution, the new digital world could widen socioeconomic gaps.

The traditional methods of creating and maintaining trust may no longer be appropriate when assets, transactions, and identities exist simultaneously in the physical and digital worlds that billions of people and organizations share.

The constituent parts

The processing power and storage needed to support extended reality, and immersive interfaces are now being addressed by cloud technology. Hyperconnected networks that use 5G are almost fully developed. AI is assisting in developing digital reflections that integrate speech, computer vision, and deep learning to provide users with authentic experiences. Partially automated financial systems are now possible thanks to the decentralization of the economy and finance, which is supported by blockchain. The demand for the virtual goods and experiences that the metaverse offers is also growing due to native digital consumers and the pandemic’s effects on consumption patterns.

The promised interoperability of the metaverse—a digital world where you and your customers can switch between numerous experiences provided by various providers—remains largely unfulfilled. Web 3.0, a new decentralized architecture for the internet that investors and innovators are currently developing, will be necessary for this connectivity. There are already enough elements in the metaverse to present opportunities and risks, regardless of whether the overall vision ever materializes.

How to get ready

Many businesses would benefit from taking six measured actions because although the true metaverse does not yet exist, many of its concepts are already relevant.

immediate actions

• Get up to speed. The concepts of the rapidly developing metaverse are unfamiliar to most businesses, including many technology companies. Many people also lack the knowledge and procedures to comprehend and believe in their digital investments and transactions fully. Assign at least one person or group to learn about important concepts like cryptocurrencies and decentralized autonomous organizations—their application to your business and how the metaverse is developing.

• Make a plan of action. Work on foundational measures after identifying gaps to fill and long-term opportunities to build from the metaverse and its key concepts. For instance, many businesses will probably profit from hiring native digital workers. Who are already familiar with the metaverse’s key ideas as well as taking technical actions like extending services—creating plans for identity and security, and publishing application programming interfaces (APIs) to core systems so others can connect.

• Try the water out. Pick a few opportunities within the current underlying trends of the metaverse. Selling digital replicas of tangible goods, giving virtual tours of virtual goods or facilities, and introducing NFTs to strengthen customer relationships are lower-risk use cases. Businesses should also consider purchasing or renting digital real estate for sales, advertising, and customer support. 4 Since no individual digital world has yet demonstrated that it will have lasting relevance, digital real estate is a riskier option. Still, it is a reasonable one for some businesses to consider.

Long-term foundations

• Think about trust. Cybersecurity, privacy rights, regulatory compliance, brand reputation, and anti-fraud initiatives face new challenges as a result of the metaverse and its existing components. Companies should, for instance, consider security at the service level to ensure safety is maintained regardless of where your asset is. Communicate early on what to anticipate from your metaverse initiatives and how you will mitigate the potential risks to build trust among consumers, shareholders, regulators, and other stakeholders. For instance, in some circumstances, the authentication of identities, assets, transactions, and contracts can be automated using blockchain and AI.

• Consider your core competencies. In a shared, decentralized digital environment, different things from what you have now might provide a competitive advantage. To fill skill gaps, you may hire new people, upskill existing employees, and adopt new methods for handling data and business relations. For instance, if the foundation of your digital strategy is controlling a digital platform, you’ll need to speed up the development of your services and security infrastructure. Consider how prepared the platform you use is, and ensure you can take your data with you if you switch service providers.

• Align the physical and digital worlds. Drive for a consistent brand experience across both the physical and digital constructs if you have added or plan to add digital services and assets to your portfolio. Your web presence, just like your experience in a physical location, needs to match your metaverse experience.

Hurry up.

These six steps can be a big advantage for your business even if a web 3.0 architecture-based metaverse only partially materializes. Many of the fundamental ideas that would form the foundation of a true metaverse are already developing quickly. Innovation is currently accelerating to transform the digital economy, improve interoperability for digital environments, establish new governance rules, create more immersive and persistent digital experiences, and create digital identities that consumers and organizations can fully own. These trends are current, regardless of how the metaverse develops. Starting can ensure that your business will stay caught up. We offer knowledgeable and skilled metaverse consulting services for you. Call us right away for more details.