The Metaverse is the latest in a long line of social computing capabilities to have emerged over the past 20 years. Each of the technologies has brought with it key changes to customer and staff behaviours and influenced the portfolios of traditional corporate business systems. In the modern world, Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), websites and their Content Management Systems (CMS,) and Customer Relationship Management (CRM) are no longer sufficient. Forward-looking enterprises can’t ignore the need to assess the key impacts of next-generation social computing platforms as they strive to embrace a Web 3.0 presence through optimised internets, digital distribution channels and numerous online marketplaces. The Metaverse is deserving of some consideration in this assessment.
The Need for Perspective in Chaos
Attracting and retaining top talent is a key goal for any large enterprise because people drive the ultimate success of every organisation. In the more buoyant economies, more work is driving the need for more workers! Competition for resources is intense and most industries, including Government, are now experiencing the challenges inherent to a tight labour market. This in turn is continuing to fan the flames of digital and cultural transformation programs as CEOs and their leadership teams reposition for relevance.
I recall one such transformation program in a client organisation from a few years ago. It started, as they do, with a sweeping internal review of customer relationships, service delivery performances, product portfolios, service capabilities, competitors, organisational culture, and skills. It was to spearhead a program of transformation underpinned by a new labour force, unified in its desire to meet every need of their clients. Its brave and remarkable outcome was identifying and accepting that the role of the “individual” inside the organisation would be the number one catalyst for future success in dealing with everything outside it: employee experience driving the customer experience.
On reflection, it is not hard to see how individuals lose their way inside large organisations. Over time, as staff numbers increase to support growth in customers and projects, complexity starts to bleed across the business and into the culture. At a time when better communication and more access to information has become more important than ever, these attributes have become even harder to find. And not just any information; information that is relevant to the individual and specific to their role; that is critical to providing perspective within the chaos. Enter the Metaverse.
What is the Metaverse for an Enterprise?
The Metaverse is everything we simultaneously love and loathe about technology. But what an opportunity! The ability to reinvent. To embrace. To transform. But also, a gilded Parthenon of extraversion and Silicon Valley excess. Yet another mirror of some contrived reality. Another step away from a simpler, more wholesome time.
Let’s all calm down. When applied to the enterprise, a Metaverse is nothing more than real life in digital form. It provides a platform capable of:
- Developing a virtual representation of an organisation, its structures, and objectives,
- Visually representing complex concepts to allow contextual interpretation by an audience,
- Encouraging excitement and enjoyment from experiencing old information in new ways,
- Giving the user a sense that it’s all about them (literally placing them at the centre), and
- Delivering an environment that provides the opportunity to integrate with existing and emerging tools.
In the context of that transformation program from many years ago, in most large organisations the information that employees need to feel valued and add value does exist but is largely inaccessible or resides in fragmented islands of data. This is because, forged through decades of compliance, the organisational view of information within companies is process-oriented. Most databases are unpopular. Most intranets are over-populated and under-utilised.
Achieving a desired cultural outcome (that recognises the individual as the number one catalyst for future success) necessitates that this process-oriented model changes to a more individual, highly contextualised, and information-driven view. Maybe even a unified collaborative data hub with a unique presentation layer. Maybe even a Metaverse!
In my next insight, I’ll share a glimpse of how life inside a Metaverse will look like for an enterprise.
