We have reached a point with technology where we are able to use it to create new realities, and emulate a physical world through the means of a digital world. Think about Virtual Reality (VR) gaming headsets or the Augmented Reality (AR) function some retailers have added to their mobile applications to allow shoppers to put the products they are browsing right into their home. These are two examples of immersive experiences, where we either put ourselves into a new digital world, or we bring the digital into the real world.

These same immersive experiences are being applied to analytics and they are creating transparency between people, data and things. Organizations are adopting an Immersive Analytics approach by utilizing Augmented Reality (AR), Virtual Reality (VR) and Mixed Reality (MR) to provide users with unique, engaging and meaningful analytics experiences. This is making analysis less redundant and increasing user productivity, as well as creating new content and application experiences for both employees and customers. 

Gartner supports Immersive Analytics as a trend, and they predict that by 2022, 70% of enterprises will be experimenting with immersive technologies for consumer and enterprise use and 25% will have deployed to production.

A common challenge is proving the value of investing in Immersive Analytics technologies. We recommend following these four steps.

1. Find a use case aligned with your business drivers and prototype a solution with a small data set
2. Align Data Strategy (both data integration and data management) with Analytics Strategy
3. Engage business stakeholders, not only data scientists or data engineers
4. Look for a sponsor among company leadership

Take your insights to the next level.

At SDG Group, we create a set of assets to accelerate the prototyping process for our customers. This Smart Point of Sales application is an example of how we demonstrate a real-life use case for Immersive Analytics.

Immersive Analytics is trend that will continue to gain traction, and the key to success is to experiment and implement it early to avoid missing business opportunities and losing to your competition. Immersive Analytics isn’t the only trend we are seeing this year.

Discover the Top 9 Data & Analytics Trends for 2019.