The first Global Enterprise Metaverse is born: Würth Italia with Hevolus Innovation
MILAN, July 26, 2022 – Around the world, especially in the last two years, companies in the retail and consumer goods sectors have discovered the potential of the metaverse to revolutionize the customer experience : Würth Italia, a leading national distributor of fastening and assembly products and systems, has chosen Hevolus Innovation, Microsoft gold partner for Mixed Reality, to introduce the first Enterprise Metaverse built with hVERSE into its online and traditional sales activities, achieving excellent results, reducing CO2 emissions, and offering customers a completely new immersive experience.
h VERSE is Hevolus' low-code platform, accessible from any connected device and accessible from the web. It allows companies to create proprietary Metaverses, translated into 27 languages, multi-device, multi-platform, and based on web 4.0. It was used to create one of the first Enterprise Metaverses following the announcements in May 2022 by some of the main BigTechs in the sector.
Furthermore, thanks to the metaverse it was possible to enhance the customer experience and generate new business opportunities , offering a revolutionary experience in a simple and sustainable way.
Würth Italia is part of the Würth Group and has been operating in the automotive, crafts, and construction sectors for nearly 60 years. Headquartered in South Tyrol, the company has 200 sales outlets throughout the country. Throughout its six decades of operation, Würth has always favored an innovative technological approach to its operations.
" Würth Italia has always invested in technologies and innovations that allow the company to optimize the customer journey and increase customer satisfaction, " says Nicola Piazza, CEO of Würth Italia . " In the era of the digital revolution, the partnership with Hevolus has certainly been a winning one, allowing us to create the first Metaverse in Italy: the Wverse. The Würth Metaverse (Wverse) represents a turning point, allowing us to evolve from a traditional website to a Web 4.0 solution, giving our customers the opportunity to enjoy a new, emotional, and immersive shopping experience and allowing them to interact within the Metaverse through their avatars. The Metaverse also allows for remote events, networking, and training activities. All of this also makes a very important contribution to sustainability: reducing many transfers and consequently significantly reducing emissions ."
Würth Italia considers the metaverse and Web 4.0 to be key technologies for strengthening its market leadership. The company aims to achieve this pioneering role by investing in mixed reality solutions and using them to enhance the in-person and online sales experience for its customers. This strategy has allowed the company to accelerate its growth rates year after year.
Hevolus' solution for Würth
“ Würth had two goals for the metaverse project: to increase sales and strengthen e-commerce ,” says Antonio Squeo, CIO of Hevolus Innovation . “ The potential of hVERSE is enormous, not only in terms of creating new business opportunities, but also in terms of sustainable innovation. The accessibility and scalability guaranteed by our platform ensure that the metaverse is accessible to everyone, even online. The most effective way to showcase a product is when the customer sees it in its actual size, but there are cases where this is not easy. The metaverse developed with hVERSE allows customers to visualize complex products and systems through their interactive 3D digital twins. This experience offers an extremely accurate idea of how the product would fit into the real space .”
The goal of the metaverse created by Hevolus is to help Würth Italia promote and sell its range of products designed for logistics, from large shelving units to automatic dispensers for personal protective equipment (PPE) to modular systems, which are often too large and heavy to be physically transported to locations and displayed to potential buyers.
The virtual environment is a futuristic, personalized and immersive 3D architecture that visitors can access with their own personal avatar. To offer customers an even more immersive and interactive experience, the Hevolus metaverse supports Mixed Reality, and this is all possible thanks to Microsoft HoloLens 2 holographic viewers.
“ We are delighted that Hevolus is supporting Würth Italia and other customers in achieving their business and sustainability goals by leveraging Microsoft technologies such as HoloLens and our Mixed Reality development platform ,” said René van Dormolen, Mixed Reality lead for Microsoft Western Europe . “ The solutions used by Würth Italia are excellent examples of how experiences in the metaverse can help innovate and improve sales, marketing and support processes .”
By accessing Wverse , Würth Italia's metaverse, customers can tour the company, view the entire range of products and systems, interact with salespeople and system consultants through their avatars, and receive real-time assistance. Access is available from any device, so no special technology is required. By creating this metaverse with a Web 4.0 approach, Würth Italia is making its products more accessible than ever, offering an emotional and engaging experience.
Since launching its mixed reality solutions, Würth Italia has captured the attention of its customers who use Würth systems, increasing their number by more than 50% compared to the previous year. Furthermore, sales lead time has been reduced by more than half. The implementation of Wverse has helped Würth Italia increase its e-commerce revenue by 60%, while website visits have increased by 20% compared to the previous year.
For more information, you can read the case and video created by Microsoft at this link.
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