How Smart IT will Propel the Future of Work and the Metaverse

A few years ago, the metaverse was just a concept on paper. Today it is the next big reality. For a business to evolve and embrace the change, and fully merge physical and virtual worlds, the transformation is anything but easy. Smarter IT choices will be critical to success. 

The pandemic accelerated the move to a hybrid workplace, and the metaverse will disrupt it further. Rapid digital transformation has accelerated the adoption of Smart IT solutions – technologies such as HPC, AI, Edge, IoT – that provide cognitive awareness to inanimate objects, devices, and infrastructure.

Immersive technologies will alter workplaces to maximize productivity in the smart normal. But what will this mean for businesses?

Creating more immersive workspaces ensures flexible working, in-person interactions, and collaborations, resulting in increased creativity and innovations. 

Working in the metaverse creates exciting opportunities by breaking down the walls of time zones and geographic locations and enabling people to work together. Organizations are already looking forward to digitizing their workspace by installing cameras and microphones, eliminating the need for bulky VR headsets.Digital giants are developing haptic gloves enabling users to interact with 3-D virtual objects and explore virtual senses. 

In a virtual workplace, meetings will change completely. 2D camera image grids will give way to a visual 3D set-up through our digital avatars.

The true potential of the metaverse will transform each industry and sector greatly. For example, town-planning or building smart cities; delivering education in new ways that is both immersive and experiential; enabling smart factories with automation; platform for next-gen gaming experience. But one universal aspect is that we are all managing all-time high workloads.

As workloads move to the cloud for a stable infrastructure, businesses are relooking at their cloud strategies to employ better storage and database capabilities to efficiently manage enormous volumes of data generated while working in a virtual workplace. Technology officers face new challenges regarding cost, accessibility, security risks, and scalability. 

How can businesses reinvent to stay current and applicable to the metaverse?

Looking beyond cloud adoption, organizations need to be propelled by IT infrastructure that manages data, applications, and workloads between connected computer environments. 

For instance, providing an immersive, synchronous 3D reality experience in the workplace through AR/VR capabilities requires high computing power. Cloud HPC (HPCaaS) provides more efficient and scalable computing resources, where businesses can leverage the flexibility offered through the ‘as-a-Service’ provision to scale up or down basis requirements and pay only for actual usage.  

Scaling IT hardware, software, and support capabilities have proven beneficial in enhancing workplace productivity and empowering organizations to outperform and achieve business goals. Edge computing, AI, and 5G solutions bring speed and agility to business operations, reduce complexities, harness AI-driven intelligence, and enhance overall business operations. For instance, seamless digital meetings powered by AR/VR technologies require low latency and high bandwidth to better exchange and record crucial business information, delivered in high quality graphics. An effective network infrastructure setup with edge and 5G functions are critical to deliver this.

Operating in virtual workplaces may also increase company exposure to privacy violations, and data thefts – A Zero Trust approach and secure storage servers offer protection. Along with a robust security model, companies should keep personal-identifiable information anonymous, adopt geofencing practices, and use two-factor authentication to ensure the security of their virtual workspace.

Security should be their topmost priority and must have a dedicated person/team handling and designing the metaverse environment. It is also crucial that employees constantly remain updated about security policies and best practices of securely operating in the virtual environment.

A metaverse environment also demands considerable investments in physical infrastructure, which may impact capital expenditure. Operational expenditure (OpEx) or as-a-service models offer infrastructure customization and enable businesses of all scales and sizes to pay only based on usage.

The hybrid workplace is poised to be the next significant disruption. Reportedly, the economic prospects of the metaverse are expected to reach 800 billion USD by 2025 and 2.5 trillion USDby 2030¹. CXOs and ITDMs must strengthen their IT infrastructure to grow and enable unified experiences that positively impact a business and its workforce. 

As the metaverse evolves and inspires leaders to enhance the virtual working experience, reliance on smart IT infrastructure will help organizations unleash the full potential of the metaverse and power the next phase of hybrid work.

Sumir Bhatia is President at AP at Lenovo ISG.

Last Updated on October 9, 2024 by Sumir Bhatia