Metaverse an 'exciting phenomenon', says Krishnan Ramanujan of TCS

(Illustration by Suneesh K.)

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Terming Metaverse as an "exciting phenomenon" that has "several use cases" for the various companies and industries beyond its initial enthusiasm, Krishnan Ramanujan, NASSCOM President & Head of Business & Tech Services at Indian IT outsourcing behemoth TCS noted that metaverse proffered a "significant space of opportunities for Indian companies."

Observing the expanse of possibilities, Ramanujan said that the "Easiest opportunities would surely be in terms of employee onboarding and experience-related things. There are a lot of training, education, skill development related use cases. Beyond that, there are many opportunities that are currently in the ideation stage".

"As time progresses and the metaverse technology matures, it will be able to respond more effectively in terms of speed latency and so on. The reason for all this excitement around the metaverse is because of the opportunities and the prospects that it could throw up for solving problems in many industries, which might be difficult to solve today, or creating revenue opportunities in the future that are inconceivable by the consumers at present", he continued.

Citing its utility and potential in the entertainment industry, Ramanujan said that "a lot of studios could look towards creating content, especially for the metaverse".

Another example where he felt that the metaverse could really step in with great effectiveness was that of uplifting the online retail shopping experience for customers.

Ramanujan explained the same by saying that many companies have proofs of concept that detail an inside, in-depth, experiential, immersive, and almost as close to real an encounter for the consumer when it comes to physical stores. But many times, that is impossible, given that there is a paucity on the number of people available to execute that vision.

"Without the need of human skill or intervention, metaverse can throw up mind-boggling opportunities in terms of transactions, educating consumers by giving them various offers and advice, and so on. This is one metaverse-related solution that sounds not so possible today", he added.

Mentioning that metaverse could become a force to reckon with in the next three-five years, Ramanujan said that the change is imminent sooner than anticipated.

"Even just a year prior to the pandemic, there were all kinds of issues associated with Cloud. While everybody clearly said that's a great transformation enabler, there were simultaneous worries about security, data confidentiality, and sovereignty. But come pandemic, like magic, all those concerns flew away. And that became the biggest trigger for how the cloud became such a huge transformation enabler. Perhaps, hopefully, not a bad thing like the pandemic but maybe there'll be a good trigger to push for the adoption of metaverse as well", said the TCS executive.

However, Ramanujan exercised caution in terms of revenue generation from this space in the times to come, noting that not a very big chunk of the estimated $350 billion, a potential figure the Indian tech industry can achieve by 2026, per NASSCOM, would stem from metaverse-related activities.