January 16, 2024 • 11 mins
AREA Researcher Dr. Michael Rygol, discusses the topic of technology strategies and how they relate to embracing enterprise. Please visit thearea.org.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Hello and welcome to the latest inthe series of the area podcasts.
I'm Michael Rygol,
and today we are discussing the topicof technology strategies and how they
relate to embracing enterprise ar.
Enterprise augmented realityoffers countless opportunities to companies looking
to improve the efficiency andeffectiveness of their business.
(00:21):
Many enterprises are pursuing digitaltransformation initiatives that focus on
delivering technology strategies thatdrive innovation in support of the
overall business goals. To begin,
studies show that robusttechnology strategies include the following components,
one, executive overviewof strategic objectives.
(00:44):
This covers the question,
what are the overall business driversand how can technologies advance them?
Such drivers can be evolutionary goalssuch as improving profitability of
certain activities within thebusiness or reducing operating costs,
or they can be morerevolutionary. For example,
opening new lines of business.Two, situational review.
(01:08):
The technology strategy review shouldinclude a description of the current state
of the business,
what technologies are being used and howwell they are working. The situational
review should also offer commentary onthe areas of the business or potential
new opportunities that need to beimproved or offer the greatest potential.
(01:29):
These can be specific financial objectivessuch as reduced costs and improve
efficiency within the servicesbusiness. Alternatively,
they may address more soft objectives,
such as reducing staff churn andtherefore improving expertise,
transfer and retention. Three,technology assessment and selection.
(01:49):
As the strategy development continues,
it quickly becomes important to assesswhich technologies can assist in
supporting the businessneeds. At this phase,
it's important to take an outside inview and gain perspectives on industry
trends,
perhaps hiring externalexperts or engaging with industry affiliations such as
the area.
(02:10):
In order to determine the selectionof the most appropriate technology,
the area can, for example,
provide a neutral and independent viewon the current technology state of the
art.
Its application to specific usecases and example case studies
showing how the technology is beingused within various industrial sectors.
(02:31):
Four, strategic planning,resourcing and leadership.
Next comes the determination of theimplementation plan of the technology
strategy. This phase shouldclearly identify potential vendors,
internal staffing requirements,and most importantly,
the internal champions and stakeholderleadership necessary to ensure alignment
(02:52):
and solution rollout.
It is often helpful in this section ofthe strategy definition to include a
maturity model,
providing an internal roadmap overtime of what is typically a growing
adoption and leverage of thetechnology within the strategy five
deployment. Lastly, thestrategy execution, IE,
(03:13):
the rollout commences. This willoften include staff training,
systems integration, customdevelopment, and more.
Many companies will also implement agovernance model that ties key performance
indicators back to the originalgoals defined in the strategy.
This framework is typicallyused to support significant technology overhauls or
(03:35):
new implementations,
but what does this mean in relationshipto adopting enterprise AR technologies?
Depending upon how andwhere AR is to be used,
one or more of the followingconsiderations will arise. One,
process impacts.
Often the adoption of AR will involvechanging how certain business processes
(03:57):
are performed.
This may involve IT impacts and possiblynew IT infrastructure to manage the
process, but also human impacts.
How the new way of working is tobe rolled out to the organization.
Two new hardware implicationsAR may involve the usage of
new hardware technologies such asdigital eyewear and therefore the
(04:19):
IT organization must be involved inactively supporting the needs of this
hardware, which initially may apply onlyto a select and small proportion of the
workforce. Three,
the content creation toconsumption pipeline.
Many AR solutions require the developmentof new content or may incorporate
reuse of existing digital assets.
(04:42):
These may include procedural definitions,step-by-step work instructions,
or 3D models,
ideally derived from the CAD mastermodels and more. This data pipeline
needs careful planning and architectingto ensure enterprise needs of
scalability and costcontrol are met. Four,
data and systems integration,some AR solution deployments.
(05:05):
Harness AI's unique ability to placedigital content directly into the
visual context of auser performing a task.
As this is a unique selling point of ar,
it is important to considerthe architectural needs to ensure that data from
enterprise business systemssuch as PLM or S-L-M-E-R-P
(05:26):
and IOT may be presentedwithin the AR application.
Ideally, the AR technologyshould incorporate mechanisms to complement existing
technology platforms and tools byensuring communication and display of
information from thesesystems. Five pace of change.
As with any new technology domain,the pace of change can be dramatic.
(05:49):
A robust technology strategy should beflexible in its definition in order to
adapt to later developments or toofferings From vendors rather than be
locked into a potentially obsoletetechnology or an insolvent vendor.
Six,
human factors safety and securityAR solutions exhibit other
(06:09):
factors that should be incorporatedinto a robust technology strategy.
As users are now potentially watchingscreens rather than their surroundings,
they may lose situational awareness,so safety concerns become paramount.
Additionally, from a security perspective,
AR devices may be delivering high valueintellectual property that must be
(06:31):
secured against malicious acts.
Some of these challenges maybe familiar to IT executives,
whilst others may be new.
With these points in mind and from theperspective of determining planning and
implementing a technology strategy,
what does this mean to companieswishing to embrace enterprise ar?
Given the nature of the earlier pointsand the depths of integration that may be
(06:54):
required,
one might think that AR needs to beconsidered only as part of a ground up
technology strategy definition.However, as with many technologies,
integration and planning can happenat a later stage. Mike Campbell,
executive VP of augmentedreality products at PTC comments,
augmented reality may be new andits impact may be disruptive,
(07:17):
but that doesn't mean it can't bewoven seamlessly into your existing
strategies. AR can plug into andenhance your existing technology stack,
improving productivity and communications,helping to modernize training,
and ultimately driving morecontextual insights for employees.
Mike makes an important point giventhat AR offers new windows into
(07:39):
existing data and systems andprovides new process methods.
It remains important for many businessesthat any disruption is a positive
one for their business and not a negativeone for their existing IT systems.
Infrastructure meshing with existinginfrastructure is key to enterprise
adoption.
Mike Campbell continues Leaders in theAR industry work hard to make software
(08:04):
and hardware scalable and simple forenterprise implementation. It can be
integrated into a technology strategy.
To enhance the solutions you already haveto offer in an efficient and engaging
way to visualize information,
you can leverage your existing cardmodels or IOT data and extend their reach
through ar.
Creating a strong digital thread in yourorganization and helping your employees
(08:28):
access critical digitaldata in the context of the physical world where they're
doing their work.
Given the fast pace of change inemergency technology such as AR,
businesses typically prefer not to belocked into the technological minutia of
specific vendors,
but clearly wish to leverage theinvestment in applications across multiple
(08:48):
domains of their business.Where it makes sense to do so.
Puts it this way,
choosing a cross platform AR strategythat partners with powerful hardware,
whether headsets or tablets,
can give you more flexibility in how youwant to deploy this information across
your workforce. Enabling you to providesolutions for employees in the field,
(09:09):
on the factory floor, andeven in the back office.
AR can be considered a strategictechnology initiative in its own right,
but the real power of AR is unleashedwhen it compliments and supports other
technology and business strategies.
A commonplace for AR to really shine isat the intersection of product lifecycle
(09:29):
management, the internet of things,
and often service lifecyclemanagement solutions.
AR is often used as an industrialsales and marketing tool,
which typically requires a thin veneerof enterprise system strategic alignment.
However,
the greatest value of enterprise ARcomes when it is integrated with other
(09:49):
technology strategies to be part of alarger and holistic strategy technology
arsenal to transformspecific business areas.
Commenting on this, Mike Campbell opines,
how exactly do you choose to deployAR will depend on your business needs.
If you have existing card models,
you can build these into AR experiencesto offer immersive training,
(10:11):
maintenance,
or assembly instructions that overlaythese models on top of the physical
machines with which they correspond. Thiscan drastically improve your workforce
productivity and shorten the time ittakes to train someone by offering in
context information whereand when it's needed.
If you have I iot data enablingemployees to visualize this data in AR
(10:32):
can provide real-time insights intothe machines they're working on,
letting them quickly and easily identifyproblems while on the shop floor.
In summary, considering how technologystrategies are often defined,
AR can be treated as revolutionaryor evolutionary enabling
businesses to try, assess, learn,
(10:53):
and expand without disruptingexisting IT infrastructure.
We'll conclude with one finalthought from Mike Campbell.
The question really isn't how does ARfit into a company's technology strategy,
but how do you want it to fit?
There are countless ways AR can bringvalue to your business and AR software and
hardware providers are continuouslyimproving their technology to make
(11:16):
integration powerful and simple.
That is exactly what weare supporting at the area.
We're helping a growing community ofusers and vendors of AR to share knowledge
and tools along with developing expertiseand best practices to ensure that AR
adoption continues to grow in2020 and beyond. Within the area,
(11:36):
we have several active committees thatare committed to developing and driving
best practices. To find outmore, please visit the area.org.
Thank you for your time.
Hello and welcome to the latest inthe series of the area podcasts.
I'm Michael Rygol,
and today we are discussing the topicof technology strategies and how they
relate to embracing enterprise ar.
Enterprise augmented realityoffers countless opportunities to companies looking
to improve the efficiency andeffectiveness of their business.
(00:21):
Many enterprises are pursuing digitaltransformation initiatives that focus on
delivering technology strategies thatdrive innovation in support of the
overall business goals. To begin,
studies show that robusttechnology strategies include the following components,
one, executive overviewof strategic objectives.
(00:44):
This covers the question,
what are the overall business driversand how can technologies advance them?
Such drivers can be evolutionary goalssuch as improving profitability of
certain activities within thebusiness or reducing operating costs,
or they can be morerevolutionary. For example,
opening new lines of business.Two, situational review.
(01:08):
The technology strategy review shouldinclude a description of the current state
of the business,
what technologies are being used and howwell they are working. The situational
review should also offer commentary onthe areas of the business or potential
new opportunities that need to beimproved or offer the greatest potential.
(01:29):
These can be specific financial objectivessuch as reduced costs and improve
efficiency within the servicesbusiness. Alternatively,
they may address more soft objectives,
such as reducing staff churn andtherefore improving expertise,
transfer and retention. Three,technology assessment and selection.
(01:49):
As the strategy development continues,
it quickly becomes important to assesswhich technologies can assist in
supporting the businessneeds. At this phase,
it's important to take an outside inview and gain perspectives on industry
trends,
perhaps hiring externalexperts or engaging with industry affiliations such as
the area.
(02:10):
In order to determine the selectionof the most appropriate technology,
the area can, for example,
provide a neutral and independent viewon the current technology state of the
art.
Its application to specific usecases and example case studies
showing how the technology is beingused within various industrial sectors.
(02:31):
Four, strategic planning,resourcing and leadership.
Next comes the determination of theimplementation plan of the technology
strategy. This phase shouldclearly identify potential vendors,
internal staffing requirements,and most importantly,
the internal champions and stakeholderleadership necessary to ensure alignment
(02:52):
and solution rollout.
It is often helpful in this section ofthe strategy definition to include a
maturity model,
providing an internal roadmap overtime of what is typically a growing
adoption and leverage of thetechnology within the strategy five
deployment. Lastly, thestrategy execution, IE,
(03:13):
the rollout commences. This willoften include staff training,
systems integration, customdevelopment, and more.
Many companies will also implement agovernance model that ties key performance
indicators back to the originalgoals defined in the strategy.
This framework is typicallyused to support significant technology overhauls or
(03:35):
new implementations,
but what does this mean in relationshipto adopting enterprise AR technologies?
Depending upon how andwhere AR is to be used,
one or more of the followingconsiderations will arise. One,
process impacts.
Often the adoption of AR will involvechanging how certain business processes
(03:57):
are performed.
This may involve IT impacts and possiblynew IT infrastructure to manage the
process, but also human impacts.
How the new way of working is tobe rolled out to the organization.
Two new hardware implicationsAR may involve the usage of
new hardware technologies such asdigital eyewear and therefore the
(04:19):
IT organization must be involved inactively supporting the needs of this
hardware, which initially may apply onlyto a select and small proportion of the
workforce. Three,
the content creation toconsumption pipeline.
Many AR solutions require the developmentof new content or may incorporate
reuse of existing digital assets.
(04:42):
These may include procedural definitions,step-by-step work instructions,
or 3D models,
ideally derived from the CAD mastermodels and more. This data pipeline
needs careful planning and architectingto ensure enterprise needs of
scalability and costcontrol are met. Four,
data and systems integration,some AR solution deployments.
(05:05):
Harness AI's unique ability to placedigital content directly into the
visual context of auser performing a task.
As this is a unique selling point of ar,
it is important to considerthe architectural needs to ensure that data from
enterprise business systemssuch as PLM or S-L-M-E-R-P
(05:26):
and IOT may be presentedwithin the AR application.
Ideally, the AR technologyshould incorporate mechanisms to complement existing
technology platforms and tools byensuring communication and display of
information from thesesystems. Five pace of change.
As with any new technology domain,the pace of change can be dramatic.
(05:49):
A robust technology strategy should beflexible in its definition in order to
adapt to later developments or toofferings From vendors rather than be
locked into a potentially obsoletetechnology or an insolvent vendor.
Six,
human factors safety and securityAR solutions exhibit other
(06:09):
factors that should be incorporatedinto a robust technology strategy.
As users are now potentially watchingscreens rather than their surroundings,
they may lose situational awareness,so safety concerns become paramount.
Additionally, from a security perspective,
AR devices may be delivering high valueintellectual property that must be
(06:31):
secured against malicious acts.
Some of these challenges maybe familiar to IT executives,
whilst others may be new.
With these points in mind and from theperspective of determining planning and
implementing a technology strategy,
what does this mean to companieswishing to embrace enterprise ar?
Given the nature of the earlier pointsand the depths of integration that may be
(06:54):
required,
one might think that AR needs to beconsidered only as part of a ground up
technology strategy definition.However, as with many technologies,
integration and planning can happenat a later stage. Mike Campbell,
executive VP of augmentedreality products at PTC comments,
augmented reality may be new andits impact may be disruptive,
(07:17):
but that doesn't mean it can't bewoven seamlessly into your existing
strategies. AR can plug into andenhance your existing technology stack,
improving productivity and communications,helping to modernize training,
and ultimately driving morecontextual insights for employees.
Mike makes an important point giventhat AR offers new windows into
(07:39):
existing data and systems andprovides new process methods.
It remains important for many businessesthat any disruption is a positive
one for their business and not a negativeone for their existing IT systems.
Infrastructure meshing with existinginfrastructure is key to enterprise
adoption.
Mike Campbell continues Leaders in theAR industry work hard to make software
(08:04):
and hardware scalable and simple forenterprise implementation. It can be
integrated into a technology strategy.
To enhance the solutions you already haveto offer in an efficient and engaging
way to visualize information,
you can leverage your existing cardmodels or IOT data and extend their reach
through ar.
Creating a strong digital thread in yourorganization and helping your employees
(08:28):
access critical digitaldata in the context of the physical world where they're
doing their work.
Given the fast pace of change inemergency technology such as AR,
businesses typically prefer not to belocked into the technological minutia of
specific vendors,
but clearly wish to leverage theinvestment in applications across multiple
(08:48):
domains of their business.Where it makes sense to do so.
Puts it this way,
choosing a cross platform AR strategythat partners with powerful hardware,
whether headsets or tablets,
can give you more flexibility in how youwant to deploy this information across
your workforce. Enabling you to providesolutions for employees in the field,
(09:09):
on the factory floor, andeven in the back office.
AR can be considered a strategictechnology initiative in its own right,
but the real power of AR is unleashedwhen it compliments and supports other
technology and business strategies.
A commonplace for AR to really shine isat the intersection of product lifecycle
(09:29):
management, the internet of things,
and often service lifecyclemanagement solutions.
AR is often used as an industrialsales and marketing tool,
which typically requires a thin veneerof enterprise system strategic alignment.
However,
the greatest value of enterprise ARcomes when it is integrated with other
(09:49):
technology strategies to be part of alarger and holistic strategy technology
arsenal to transformspecific business areas.
Commenting on this, Mike Campbell opines,
how exactly do you choose to deployAR will depend on your business needs.
If you have existing card models,
you can build these into AR experiencesto offer immersive training,
(10:11):
maintenance,
or assembly instructions that overlaythese models on top of the physical
machines with which they correspond. Thiscan drastically improve your workforce
productivity and shorten the time ittakes to train someone by offering in
context information whereand when it's needed.
If you have I iot data enablingemployees to visualize this data in AR
(10:32):
can provide real-time insights intothe machines they're working on,
letting them quickly and easily identifyproblems while on the shop floor.
In summary, considering how technologystrategies are often defined,
AR can be treated as revolutionaryor evolutionary enabling
businesses to try, assess, learn,
(10:53):
and expand without disruptingexisting IT infrastructure.
We'll conclude with one finalthought from Mike Campbell.
The question really isn't how does ARfit into a company's technology strategy,
but how do you want it to fit?
There are countless ways AR can bringvalue to your business and AR software and
hardware providers are continuouslyimproving their technology to make
(11:16):
integration powerful and simple.
That is exactly what weare supporting at the area.
We're helping a growing community ofusers and vendors of AR to share knowledge
and tools along with developing expertiseand best practices to ensure that AR
adoption continues to grow in2020 and beyond. Within the area,
(11:36):
we have several active committees thatare committed to developing and driving
best practices. To find outmore, please visit the area.org.
Thank you for your time.
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