Should your business enter the metaverse? Here’s what the Big 4 consultancies are saying.
Ernst and Young
“The metaverse cannot be an end in itself, but rather a tool to be more successful as a company,” states Ernest and Young in a report published in May 2022. Patrick Rottiers and Thierry Mortier, EY managing partners of the Belgium office, shared their intelligence on metaverse marketing and risk management spurred on by the demands of their clients. First and foremost, their recommendation was, “Be bold and experiment,” which they follow with more conservative advice. “The revenue streams and the business cases are sometimes still difficult to identify. In reality, it is often the less sexy interactions with companies that can succeed in the metaverse. Think of a virtual help desk or a digital twin of a machine in a factory.” The takeaway from the Ernst and Young report is that each company is unique. Use-case analysis should be applied before any company invests heavily in the metaverse. Don’t rush in without asking yourself, how does this add value for my customers and ecosystem?
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KPMG
KPMG is putting its money where its avatar mouth is. The Big 4 accounting firm has invested 30 million dollars into its metaverse hub and Web 3.0 infrastructure. Their internal focus is on staff and client education. Laura Newinski, KPMG COO, said, “The metaverse is a market opportunity, a way to re-engage talent, and a path to connect people across the globe through a new collaborative experience.” The long-term objective for KPMG is to study use cases for health care, consumer, retail, media, and financial services with an emphasis on cryptocurrency.
Deloitte
Deloitte’s metaverse report sums it up under the heading—It’s Time to Invest in the XR Industry. The Big 4 consultancy plans to issue a series of reports on the metaverse, focusing on the XR industry trends. Deloitte discusses the investment opportunities in the XR market from the perspective of market demand and development. The first report in their series states, “Investment opportunities across the entire industrial chain of hardware, software, content, and application are emerging. In addition to the general focus on downstream applications and hardware devices such as headset glasses investment value, the industry chain of hardware, software, content, and ecological segments are breeding a plethora of investment and strategic positioning opportunities.” According to the report, applications that will be revolutionized by the metaverse include healthcare, arts and entertainment, education, virtual services, virtual community management, and even transportation.
PricewaterhouseCoopers
PWC recommends building a metaverse strategy to deliver sustainable business outcomes. A remarkable section of the PWC’s metaverse report showed the disconnect between what large companies plan to do with the metaverse and what consumers actually want. Consumers wanted to find and explore virtual spaces, play games, and attend courses. In contrast, big brands planned on using the metaverse to train their staff, create customer service experiences, and offer virtual content. The disconnect between companies and consumers isn’t vast but is notable. For your metaverse presence, we suggest meeting your audience’s expectations, whether internal or external. Furthermore, PWC suggests, “For metaverse newcomers, the highest return way to start is often to build on your existing brand presence to enter the metaverse. You may wish, for example, to enhance current marketing and loyalty programs with personalized metaverse storefronts, token-gated communities, and immersive experiences, including education and discovery of your products.”
Accenture and JPMorgan
Honorable mentions in our examination of Big Finance’s investment in the metaverse include Accenture and JP Morgan. In early 2022, JPMorgan suggested the metaverse was a “one trillion-dollar opportunity.” The mega-bank established a virtual headquarters in Decentraland. Along with JPMorgan, Pricewaterhouse has made a significant investment in metaverse land. Accenture adopted the tagline, Meet Me In the Metaverse. Their commitment is displayed in a seventy-two-page report on Web 3.0 and metaverse business opportunities. Their conclusion, “The arrival of the programmable world will be the most disruptive turning point for people and businesses in decades. We’re about to live in environments that can physically transform on command, that can be customized and controlled to an unprecedented degree, and that can change faster and more often than we have ever seen before. With these environments, a new arena for innovation and business competition will be born.”
In summary, all the major consultancies are recommending metaverse ventures and investments. There is no question that the metaverse is here to stay. The question is, are you ready?
If you are not sure, let us help. SliiceXR is one of the first global agencies that specialize in metaverse marketing.