The four pillars of NCS’s Metaverse strategy – An enterprise Metaverse perspective

NCS’s Metaverse strategy is a comprehensive one. It is comprised of four key Metaverse archetypes, namely:

• Consumer Metaverse: Consumer-centric Metaverse experiences centred around retail, lifestyle, media, and entertainment. This includes elements of Web 3.0 and is a new phygital (physical plus digital) channel of engagement for businesses.

• Enterprise Metaverse: Centred around collaboration and productivity, it is where businesses engage with stakeholders in persistent virtual spaces and shared experiences such as town hall meetings and collaborative workspaces.

• Industrial Metaverse: Revolves around enabling operational excellence with tools such as Extended Reality (XR), digital twins, and smart wearables. It is enhanced by the latest developments in digital connectivity, networking, and visual rendering.
• Training Metaverse: Centred around safe and efficient training, and customised training scenarios, delivered in the Metaverse. Generative AI plays a synergistic role by enabling virtual interactive avatars or by dynamically creating scenarios.

These archetypes relate closely to existing and maturing technologies, including digital twins and immersive headsets, but are also intertwined with emerging concepts, including Web 3.0 and Generative AI.

With the launch of Apple Vision Pro and the visionOS software development kit (SDK) in June 2023, developer interest in spatial computing has increased. The further development of display technology, coupled with more tactile control, will allow businesses to leverage the Enterprise Metaverse to better enable immersive remote work, collaboration, and stakeholder engagement.

Spotlight: NCS pushing the cutting edge for financial service digital transformation

Challenges

In the rapidly-evolving digital financial services space, innovation is not just a buzzword – it's a necessity. Our client, a prominent regional financial service provider based in Asia, has consistently embraced innovation to enhance customer experience. Known for its pioneering use of technology, the financial service provider has earned accolades for its digital transformation efforts and has cemented its position as a digital leader in the industry. Its next challenge? The Metaverse.

Recognising the unprecedented opportunity the Metaverse presented to engage customers in a novel, immersive way, in May of 2022 the company began its journey to leverage the Metaverse's potential. However, while the Metaverse promised innovation, the security risks it presented could not be ignored. With a vision that transcended mere banking services, the company aimed to shape the Metaverse to cater to present and future generations of Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) customers. But the challenge lay in gradually adopting a Metaverse platform while maintaining the highest level of security at every step.

NCS's solution

To address these challenges head on, the financial service provider sought a partner with expertise in the Metaverse landscape. Their choice was clear: NCS. Collaborating closely, NCS developed a customised Metaverse solution that aligned with the service provider’s goals.

The cornerstone of this solution was day one security – a non-negotiable requirement for any platform that involves financial transactions. This foundation was built on a dynamic multi-room hub and spoke architecture, a setup that allowed each Metaverse "room" to function as an individual application. This architecture ensured that the platform was scalable and could be adapted to meet fluctuating demands.

A critical aspect was the inclusion of an orchestrator that managed the orchestration of rooms. In addition to providing for scalability, the orchestrator maintains end-to-end security and manages the spin-up and spin-down of rooms in strict compliance with security protocols.

But security wasn't the only focus. The solution also included a set of features that governed interactions within the Metaverse. These features, seemingly minor but pivotal, prevented any inconsistencies, hacking, or cheating within the virtual realm. For instance, imagine a player trying to move at the speed of 100 metres per second (m/s) – a scenario the platform was designed to prevent. This attention to detail underscored the solution's robustness.

Ultimately, the collaboration resulted in a four-tiered approach to the Metaverse. That approach starts with a basic “Informational” layer, where a Metaverse environment is created for professionals to retrieve information. It then scales to a “Discovery” layer where more immersive, interactive, and engaging programs are available. The final, most complex and secure layer is the “Transactional” layer where commercial transactions occur.

This multi-layered approach allowed the financial service provider to gradually onboard users and to test effectiveness at each layer.  Beginning with a few hundred users, the platform was efficiently scaled to accommodate more than one thousand users. This progression was a testament to the solution's adaptability and effectiveness.

Results

The collaboration between NCS and the financial service provider was successful at every stage of implementation:

Informational stage: At this stage, NCS created a Technology and Operations Town Hall meeting. With a focus on laying an initial foundation, the meeting allowed one hundred of the financial service provider’s staff members to experience Metaverse platform zones, entrances, meeting halls, games rooms, and lounges, as the initial step toward full immersion.

Immersion stage: A Future Operations Festival was organised that allowed two hundred company employees to glimpse the Metaverse's immersive potential through digital twins of physical booths. This immersion experience fuelled creative re-engineering ideas for future customer and employee interactions.

Discovery stage: Going a step further, NCS built a Customer Experience Day for the client. This stage involved the financial service provider’s Customer Experience (CX) team members who were physically located across eighteen different markets. Hosted in a "resort" environment that included seven separate zones, the experience combined exhibits, livestreamed sessions with company leaders, external speakers, and panellists to enrich both learning and collaboration among the CX team.

Transactional stage: The final stage was the Tokenisation Metaverse. This pinnacle stage tested the integration of the gamified elements and NFTs available on the platform. Staff earned over 1 million coins while bidding translated into charitable donations. With 500 staff participants, this finale showcased the platform's multi-dimensional capabilities.

The Metaverse platform offers an immersive alternative that bridges geographical gaps, enhances interaction, and fosters productivity through personalised real-world experiences. By systematically onboarding both employees and customers, the financial service provider was able to execute controlled experiments with new technologies and experiences while managing risks. This strategic approach allowed the service provider to shape its own version of the Metaverse by leveraging the customer solution that was developed by NCS.

Metaverse platforms that incorporate transactional capabilities offer huge promise to increase user engagement. Decentraland, a 3D virtual world where users can buy virtual land and trade in NFTs had eight thousand active users as of October 2022, and more than SGD 2 million worth of virtual land was sold in just last two months of 2022 on The Sandbox, a similar Metaverse platform.  While full metrics are incomplete for its pilot phase, the financial service provider’s Metaverse proof of concept demonstrated promising results in increasing user interest and engagement.

The partnership between the financial service provider and NCS exemplifies the balance between innovation and the careful planning and adoption of the Metaverse. The financial service provider is exploring how to increase customer value through additional Metaverse use cases, including the provision of advisory services, delivery of master classes, creation of new networking channels, and IT technology onboarding services. As this financial service provider continues on its journey, the Metaverse stands as a gateway to unprecedented opportunities to redefine the way it engages with customers and employees alike.