on your rights under the UK GDPR.
For any queries regarding our merger, please read boxxe & Total Computers – A Powerful Merger or contact our Customer Services Team on 0330 236 9429 or via email at letschat@boxxe.com.
3 Facts about Modern Business Travel
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On average, domestic work trips cost UK organisations £280 per employee.
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UK organisations spent a total of £6.3billion per year on international work trips (pre-pandemic).
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The lack of work-related travel during the COVID-19 pandemic single-handedly caused a 7% drop in global carbon emissions.
This tells us that travel is expensive, it's harmful to the environment and that finding alternatives to travel which provide the same organisational value are in every company's best interests.
So why do we do it?
Well, pre-pandemic, 70% of all UK professionals were travelling for one of two reasons:
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Training and development (37%)
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Meeting and collaborating with colleagues/clients in different offices (33%)
These aren't needless trips either - the above play an important role for organisations. In fact, an estimated 28% of current business value would be lost, according to Oxford Economics, if business travel suddenly stopped.
So the question is: How can businesses keep training their staff, and continue collaborating in a way that doesn't impact profit and organisational reputation (i.e. high carbon footprint) like travel does?
The solution? XR.
What is XR?
XR - or Extended Reality - is an umbrella term for Augmented Reality (AR), Virtual Reality (VR), and Mixed Reality (MR).
Most of us will be used to interacting with some form of XR with our phones, but for enterprise purposes - things get really exciting when you start looking at XR headsets.
There are several leading enterprise-ready XR headsets on the market today - including the Microsoft HoloLens 2, the RealWear HMT-1, the Magic Leap 1 and the Vuzix M400. This year, we got hands-on with all of them and recorded our impressions. Find out more about each headset below.
XR headsets
One of our favourite XR headsets on the market today is the RealWear HMT-1.
It's a fully hands-free computer that sits on your head and is controlled entirely with voice commands. We've added our detailed video breakdown below if you want a full overview of the headset, but the main points you need to know for this article are that it's perfectly suited for outdoor work (with 4 on-board, noise-cancelling microphones), it has 4G wireless connectivity so you can stay connected outdoors, and has a front-facing 1080p camera that you can use to record work while you're doing it.
Training, development and collaboration with XR
Say you're an engineer that's working in the field and you encounter a problem. With an XR headset like the RealWear HMT-1, you can call a specialist on Teams (or any of the many other compatible video conferencing apps), use the forward facing 1080p camera to share what you're doing and get on the job support to solve that issue immediately.
Even better, that specialist can email you a relevant equipment manual which you can open and view on the headset's mounted display while you work.
In practice, that means field-based engineers as well as IT, manufacturing or construction professionals can spend less time in a class room, and more time building on-the-job experience safely.
Boeing used XR for that exact scenario in 2018, and found that engineers using the headsets built 747s 30% faster than engineers without.
And with ruggedised and intrinsically safe models available, front-line field workers can bring the device with them to any work environment. That's the RealWear HMT-1 - one of our favourite XR devices to support remote workers and on-the-job training in 2022.
Conclusion
XR isn't an abstract concept to look out for in the next 5-10 years. The two main reasons for business travel are collaboration and training, and devices that can help you cut down your travel costs and associated emissions exist today.
At boxxe, we've been experimenting with devices like the RealWear HMT-1 and HoloLens 2 throughout 2021/22 and have seen first-hand how much potential they have to increase profits, provide next-generation service experiences to our customers and support the UK's net zero target.
In fact just last year, we used the RealWear HMT-1 to remotely supervise a build of hybrid teams meeting rooms in offices based in the Scottish Highlands. Traditionally, that support would have required our Specialist to make an on-site trip that would have cost hundreds in travel, hotel and subsistence costs - not to mention the emissions from a return 8+ hour drive.
Instead, we used XR to provide our customer with the same level of support for only a fraction of the cost and emissions.
There is a range of XR devices on the market today, and we've only shown you a snippet of what's available.
If you're interested in hearing more about the potential of XR technology, and continuing 2022 with a bold new digital transformation plan for your business...
