Starting your own business may be one of the most rewarding things people do. We do it for a myriad of reasons, chief among them to have more flexibility, control, and autonomy. In fact, if you asked fifty entrepreneurs to describe why they started their own businesses, they’d likely give you fifty different reasons.

According to Statistics Canada, after eight years of operation; however, only 25 of those businesses would still be operating. Entrepreneurs take a big risk. As an employee, finding a new job takes time, but eventually we power through and find something.

Entrepreneurs on the other hand lose far more when things go wrong. They lose their investment in the company as well anything they’ve used to secure their financing. For some, it’s almost impossible to recover from.

And the hit to the psyche of an entrepreneur is far more complicated. Losing your job can be from any number of reasons out of your control. An entrepreneur is expected to have a crystal ball, however. Your business’ failure is seen as a reflection of your poor choices in people, resources, or industries.

It’s that risk that keeps entrepreneurs up at night. We war with ourselves late at night.

Did we market our services enough?

Did we hire the right people?

Is our business idea good enough?

The questions pile up until it feels like we’re carrying the weight of the world on our shoulders. What can we do so our business doesn’t become another statistic?

Invest in augmented reality.

So, how will investing in augmented reality affect a business’ chance of success?

Training

When you think about it, entrepreneurs employ a lot of people. In 2017, small and medium sized businesses, businesses with fewer than 500 employees employed more than 10.5 million people, or 89.6 percent of the working population. (https://www.ic.gc.ca/eic/site/061.nsf/eng/h_03090.html#point2-1)

Henry Ford is attributed with saying, “The only thing worse than training your employees and having them leave is not training them and having them stay.” (https://www.recruiter.com/i/why-its-critical-to-invest-in-employee-training-and-development/)

Poor employee performance can usually be attributed to an employee not understanding what their job entails, how to perform the job, and how their job is affected by certain processes. This lack of understanding is corrected by investing in basic training. There is so much more; however, as extensive training can lead to:

· Competitive advantage

· Employee loyalty

· Flexibility in the market

A well-trained employee certainly has the possibility of leaving, but the law of averages indicates that enough will stay to increase the viability of the company.

Investing in augmented reality can be put in place in three different places:

· Onboarding

· Continuing

· Enhancing

With the advent of automation, jobs are becoming more high-tech. The progress of technological change is so prevalent that employees are beginning to fear for their jobs. According to an article in the Guardian in 2015, a study by Deloitte in England actually shows that technology advancement increases the need for jobs. In essence, the greater the level of technology, the more jobs are created as more opportunities are created. (https://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/aug/17/technology-created-more-jobs-than-destroyed-140-years-data-census)

While we can certainly incorporate traditional training into an augmented reality training program, we have to acknowledge that the new technologies are already stretching our understanding of the world around us.

There are seven ways people learn:

· Visual – Use visual cues like images, videos, and mind maps.

· Aural – You learn by rhythms and rhymes.

· Verbal - You need to read content aloud or listen to someone doing the same.

· Physical – Need to repeat a process to learn it.

· Logical – Understand when you know the bigger picture.

· Social – You learn best in groups.

· Solitary – You need to sit by yourself to learn.

We need to take advantage of more than just our ability to read for our diverse workforce to learn, especially when you consider our existing and older employees may learn differently than newcomers.

Through the use of augmented reality, you can train an employee with any learning style or experience level. Haptic gloves will give feedback for those who need the tactile feel and repeated efforts to learn while audio and visual elements of tech like AR glasses will help fulfill the needs of most other learners. The great thing about a digital training system is that we have the opportunity to adjust it for everyone either singly or in groups.

According HR Dive, Axonify identified three important concepts about classroom training. In their State of Workplace Training Study, they found over 90% of employees want:

Training that is easy to complete and understand

Personalized and relevant training

Engaging and fun training

(https://www.hrdive.com/news/why-traditional-classroom-training-isnt-enough-for-todays-employee/518229/)

Augmented reality can achieve all of these requirements for your employees.

Production Innovation

A survey by the Conference Board of Canada indicates that Canada ranks 12th out of 16 peer countries for innovation. That ranking appears even worse when you see that trending is down three positions from the previous time frame. Even if we acknowledge that Canada is investing in research and development, the innovation performance by other peer countries has increased even more. (https://www.conferenceboard.ca/hcp/provincial/innovation.aspx?AspxAutoDetectCookieSupport=1)

According to Bloomberg’s Innovation index, Canada ranks 22nd in innovation, out of the top-tier. In fact, the indicator used for productivity shows that we are 12% below the G7 average. Per an article in Mclean’s from 2018, Canada’s GDP per capita was nearly 6 percent higher than the G7 average in 1970 while today, it is 4 percent lower.

Bloomberg’s list of indicators includes:

· Research and Development

· Manufacturing

· High Tech companies

· Post secondary education

· Research personnel

· Patents

All is not lost; however, as augmented reality can level any playing field, giving engineers the ability to explore and design like never before. In fact, the technology can actually give non-engineers the capability to do rudimentary product design.

It does this by:

· Bringing product design to life in 3-dimensional space

· Contextual visualization for design adjustments

· Collaborative design with colleagues near and far

· Intuitive design with haptic feedback

· Reduction in prototyping

Each element leads to a reduction in time and costs which in turn increases our productivity. Not only can we affect our product design, but manufacturing the design as well.

Customer Experience

The experience a customer has starts at your outreach for acquisition, peaks at point of sale, and then plateaus at your customer service. With three essential points of contact and many more if there is a significant courting or continued business thereafter, you can have a lot of interactions with your clientele.

According to a study by Mckinsey (https://industryanalysts.com/12417_greatamerica/), consumers indicate that 70% of the customer journey is based on how they feel they are being treated. That means you need to treat your customers with respect from start to finish. In fact, according to the Harvard Business Review, investing in new customers is costs between 5 and 25 times more than retaining existing ones. (Harvard Business Review) Conversely, the success rate for selling to an existing customer is between 60 and 70% compared to 5 to 20% for a new customer. (https://www.outboundengine.com/blog/customer-retention-marketing-vs-customer-acquisition-marketing/)

Retaining your customers is a crucial element to your business success. Inbound marketing giant HubSpot says that 90% of customers will make a repeat purchase if your customer service is considered excellent. (https://blog.hubspot.com/news-trends/customer-acquisition-study)

Elements of story

According to Forbes, storytelling is one of the best forms of marketing. Storytelling is compelling and engaging. It allows a marketer to connect the brand messaging across multiple platforms as it exercises an evolutionary element of learning. We are inherently drawn to stories. It allows us to share our experiences in a visceral way. (https://www.forbes.com/sites/kimberlywhitler/2018/07/14/3-reasons-why-storytelling-should-be-a-priority-for-marketers/amp/)

Augmented Reality lends perfectly to story telling. You can breathe life into 2d marketing concepts like printed materials. This investment in AR will actually reduce the need for other marketing formats. As you get buy-in from your audience, you can use triggers on packaging and geolocations to push information their way instead of blanketing locations with radio, billboards, or television.

Access to a company through AR is also a bonus as the same trigger points that are used to sell a product can be used to educate or solve a problem. Like the Internet of Things, you can embed information into anything that is tagged. This information can be visual or auditory so your users feel connected to you whenever they need it.

That connectedness goes even further. A study performed by Accenture in 2013 indicates almost 75% of respondents were “extremely frustrated” when they had to contact a company multiple times for the same reason. It went on to say almost 90% of people had the same level of frustration explaining their problem to multiple customer service reps. (https://bloomfire.com/blog/the-problem-with-traditional-customer-service/)

With an AR customer service line, your customers can not only tell you the problem with a product, but show you in real time. You can then either show that footage to the right people to solve the issue or use it to educate the consumer properly. The customer service you offer is so important. An American Express report from 2014 shows that 70% of customers who have issues with a product or service will likely purchase again if their issues are resolved in their favour.

Gamification and Overlay

The concept of gamification through AR will also lead a customer from the start of their journey to the finish. With this interactive marketing, consumers have a positive experience and feedback with your brand. Deep Patel wrote in Entrepreneur that the consumer has control over their experience which reinforces the content as more personal and memorable. (https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/327757)

Through the use of interactive games such as quizzes, assessments, and calculators, consumers are able to understand themselves more and then they can also overlay your products onto their physical worlds as well as an interior designer would on your favourite HGtv television show. Amazon has a similar app you can use to see how a product will look in your home. (https://www.amazon.com/adlp/arview)

AR can work very well with the social media platforms that your business is already exploring so you have more connection points with a consumer.

The bottom line

When it comes to the success of your business, you can either win by reducing costs or increasing revenues. With augmented reality, you have a framework to affect both. You have the capacity to train your people faster, easier, and more efficiently with respect to each individual. A more informed and skilled workforce will then work more efficiently and you’ll be able to enter into new markets.

Having the physical capacity to achieve more is another benefit offered by AR. Your manufacturing will become faster and more streamlined as well.

Finally, your customer journey will be more compelling and interactive. You will be engaging more with a wider audience from initial contact to ongoing communications.

Investing in augmented reality will transform your business like nothing ever has. You will earn more, spend less, and last longer.



