The meaning of Audi and its Virtual Reality program

8

October

2016

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Audi is the first car company which is experimenting with virtual reality. To promote a new prototype it is way cheaper to walk around a car that isn’t actually there, than to physically import the car in to the dealer. Even though Virtual Reality is not “new and exciting” anymore at the moment (it actually is but the big crowd is easily bored), Audi takes the technology one step further.

To check a new model you don’t even have to go to the dealer anymore, you can just do it at home by making use of the Virtual Reality cardboard glasses. Unlike the VR headsets we know (Oculus Rift for instance), the Audi VR set only costs € 7,50 and is compatible with your smartphone. You just download the Audi Virtual Reality Experience App from the appstore, shove your iPhone in the Audi VR glass and you are able to see al the ins and outs of the car.

Now I know what you are thinking, a VR glass which costs € 7,50 is most likely a piece of garbage. Correct, but does that matter if you are practically using it for just one or two times? Important for me is that Audi shows they are innovating in different fields. Audi looks beyond the current market needs when it comes to car features and also tries to innovate on the sales process. This incentive can also be derived from different objects. Audi is for instance participating in the Google Lunar XPRIZE space travel competition which aims to land a rover on the moon. Besides, Audi also has its own innovation award.

These times it is not enough anymore to reply to customer demand with your core product. It becomes more important to provide the consumer with (technological) side products which do not have a sustainable profit margin, but they do contribute to the overall experience of the customer.

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The Exalt of Organizational E-learning

18

September

2016

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Just Google it, Organizational E-learning. Everybody wants to know how it works, what the best techniques are to implement an E-learning environment and more importantly, everybody wants to state how great these platforms are when it comes to organizational development. Yes, E-learning provides a solution for, mainly big corporation, employees to develop themselves and to keep track of the constant changing environment, but it also has its downside.

Basically, an organizational e-learning platform obliges employees to get back to the (online) study books and acquire knowledge, which should be useful to contribute to the company. The organization where I work for tests its employees every month about various subjects in the form of an online exam. This is what bothers me. At university we say that students are here to develop themselves and create new knowledge, which can impossibly be tested with an exam. The only reason that students are tested by an exam is because we have the urge to couple some sort of grade to the effort and knowledge of a specific student.

While working for an organization, there is no need anymore to grade the efforts and results of an employee, the results speak for themselves. If a certain project is successfully completed, management will notice this and the other way around. While working on the project the employee will acquire the relevant knowledge gradually and no time will be wasted with studying global subjects, which are not even connected to the real business environment.

From my own experience I can state, that employees often see this tests as obligated formalities which cost time and most of the time do not add any value to his or her core function. It also increases the workload because employees need to work on their E-learning in their spare time otherwise it will press the operational figures. Every organization has employees who do not have any affection with their job and that are certainly not happy to study for monthly tests at home.

It would be better to apply the concept of the long-tail phenomena on the process of E-learning. Even though this platform is based on an online environment, companies are struggling to focus on the niche segment of employees within the company. Basically every employee studies the same subject and this is one of the main reasons which causes dissatisfaction and slacking behaviour. Employees would be more eager to use the E-environment when they can focus on a project which is of his or her concern.

I am not saying that the E-learning platforms need to vanish from the organizational environment, but I do argue for the fact that these platforms need to be embedded more effectively. It is the management’s task to make sure that the platform is connected to the real-world business tasks so that employees only gain extra knowledge, which is relevant for this specific task. This way the appraisal of the employees work also be much more reliable and the spirit of parochialism will be restricted.

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