James Watson - Immerse

You’re going to be giving a presentation later today, could you tell us what its going to be about?

I’m going to be talking about the importance of data and how that applies to using virtual reality for digital transformation. A lot of experiences, and the use of virtual reality doesn’t really have any data to back it up. For us it’s really important to have that because then you can prove the ROI that comes out of those experiences. If you think of virtual reality training does someone do that thing faster? Do they do it better? Do they retain the knowledge for longer? It’s all those sorts of things so we’re really talking about the data angle of virtual reality.

Why have you decided to get involved with the Future Oil and Gas event?

It seems like a great event to bring together those positions within the oil and gas industry who are looking at digital transformation. Virtual reality fits really well within that, it will fundamentally change the oil and gas industry from training right through to visualisation and collaboration. But, I think with where it’s at, at the moment, it’s very much a sort of training use case because that’s the most obvious way to apply it right now. However, I think looking four, five years ahead, the way they collaborate and visualise new ways of working and new products will also be really playing into that virtual reality space.

A key theme is digital transformation how companies can drive change, what is Immerse currently doing that the moment? What kind of impact is digital transformation having for you?

We’re working with a broad sector of clients, many of which are in the oil and gas sector and they’re looking at how it changes their complete outlook towards health and safety and assessment so it’s having a huge impact on them. They’re able to recreate risky environments with actually no risks so, de-risking those situations and recreating situations they wouldn’t normally be able to do. Often they might have to shut down part of a plant and that costs money. Whereas, if you recreate that virtually, there’s no need to shut down that plant you’re not taking that piece of equipment offline and even training on equipment that doesn’t yet exist. If they have equipment that they know is coming, you can build it virtually and that person can train on that equipment so as soon as it arrives, they’re up and running and ready to go. It’s had a huge impact and I think it’s a really obvious example of where that digital transformation is particularly impacting the oil and gas industry.