Remote Expert Technology Must Be Deployed Enterprise-Wide, New Survey Reveals

Survey by Worldwide Business Research and Librestream shows 61% of leaders state Augmented Reality is critical to their strategy 

Librestream, a global provider of augmented worker enterprise solutions, in conjunction with Worldwide Business Research (WBR), the world leader in B2B research, today announced the results of a survey that revealed 82% of organizations plan to increase investments in augmented-reality (AR) by over 20% in 2021, reinforcing its transformational impact from a company-wide level. 

The report includes a wide range of findings that reveal leadership attitudes around AR including viewpoints on business needs and benefits, pace of adoption, most important capabilities, challenges and expected investments. 

The survey highlighted the increasing rate of AR adoption with 56% reporting growing applications while 10% are fully integrated across the service operation. A majority of organizations surveyed anticipate increasing investments in AR at a significant rate–by as much as 60%–over the next year, making it clear that AR solutions are a key part of the fabric of a company. Librestream’s user growth supports these findings; from 2019 to 2020, the company saw customer license growth of over 838%, indicating expanded deployment across business units and use cases. 

The study also placed a spotlight on the remote assistance features companies are seeking. More than 40 percent of respondents said that the most crucial remote assistance features are usage statistic analytics, device-agnostic software, diagnostic tool support and offline and low-bandwidth features. This indicates that many organizations are pivoting towards more technically mature field service operations and technology vendors. 

“Remote assistance technology itself is not new–Librestream pioneered the category more than 17 years ago,” explained Jereme Pitts, COO of Librestream. “However, this survey shows us that organizations are no longer using remote assistance tools simply to communicate–for that, a simple phone call or Zoom conference is often sufficient. Instead, sophisticated organizations are harnessing the full power of AR-powered remote assistance platforms like Onsight, to improve productivity, enhance service ROI and even create new revenue streams. These findings make it clear why these solutions need to be deployed on an enterprise-wide basis by executives, not on an ad-hoc basis.” 

Additionally, the survey revealed the most common business benefits associated with augmented reality platforms, including as a selling point in third-party contractor negotiations (45 percent), improved technician productivity (40 percent), improved ROI/cost savings (38 percent), improved worker safety (37 percent) and shorter training timelines (34 percent). 

Barriers to development remain, however. The survey uncovered the most challenging factors to manage when developing an AR strategy within a business. These included collecting and implementing technician feedback (53 percent), managing the scaling of the technology after a pilot (50 percent), and change management/training (45 percent).  

“These survey findings showcase the importance organizations are placing on prioritizing the integration of AR into field service processes. As such, companies are adopting these technologies at a fast clip, across business units, and to solve a vast array of needs. Service providers like Librestream will remain a key partner as companies continue to improve their business outcomes through AR,” said Chris Rand, Digital Content and Research Manager at WBR. 

The survey, commissioned by Librestream and carried out by WBR, consisted of phone interviews with 100 leaders at US-based service organizations in industries including heavy equipment, manufacturing, aerospace, energy, automotive, medical, food and beverage, and more.  

Download the full survey results here. 

More information:  

View the Librestream press kit here.