IT firms see early signs of metaverse adoption

Indian IT services companies are witnessing early signs of metaverse adoption, both internally and with clients. Some of the services companies are first developing internal use cases for the metaverse that can be later expanded to serve client needs. At a later stage, they are also identifying replicable demand across verticals and investing in targeted offerings and driving proof-of-concepts (POCs) with clients.

IT providers are identifying themes for metaverse adoption in their internal business operations, both in employee and customer-centric use cases, according to a Nasscom report titled “Metaverse – Prepare to Win”. Employee use cases can be for recruitment and onboarding, learning, development and workplace collaboration while customer-centric uses cases can be in the form of virtual delivery centres and pre-sales customer interaction.

“On metaverse, we are starting to see some projects and programs, especially related to AR/VR (augmented reality/ virtual reality) in the manufacturing, retail, education training, and maintenance context,” Salil Parekh, CEO and MD, Infosys, said in response to a question from FE. Last year, Tech Mahindra launched TechMVerse, its metaverse practice to deliver interactive and immersive experiences in the metaverse for its customers. The company is betting big on its uses and currently has about 70-80 active deals in the metaverse space.

Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) is working on several metaverse-related use cases across verticals such as online shopping and workplace experience though the technology is expected to drive revenues only in the next three-five years. “We are still in the early stages. People are doing some piloting but leveraging the metaverse as an alternative channel for doing business is yet to happen,” said N Ganapathy Subramaniam, chief operating officer of TCS. To understand the potential of the metaverse, Wipro commissioned a global survey of 550 business and technology executives, which revealed that “the metaverse is here to stay despite recent technology-sector turbulence and market skepticism”.

Wipro chairman Rishad Premji said during a annual general meeting that the company is investing in emerging areas like metaverse and Web 3.0.According to Deloitte, the adoption level of the metaverse may vary across industries depending on the viability of the use-cases in each sector. “The success of metaverse penetration will depend on organisations’ digital maturity to tap into its core levers of phygital immersive experience, trust layer, economic infrastructure and creator economy to their business and the pace of development of the ecosystem,” said Sreeram Ananthasayanam, partner, Deloitte India.