ABSTRACT
The digital technologies discussed in this chapter enable organizations to leverage the growing troves of image and video data captured from a range of devices and stakeholders (e.g. CCTV, smartphones, online uploads) to offer new virtual products and services (e.g. virtual world products and experiences or enhanced real-world products and experiences), to make new operational efficiency breakthroughs (e.g. drastically improving staff training and enhancing technology-based support for staff through the use of augmented and mixed reality), to craft novel marketing campaigns (e.g. novel virtual, augmented, or mixed reality marketing campaigns), to approach after sales support differently (e.g. virtual, augmented, or mixed reality-guided repairs performed by customers), and much more. Helping their stakeholders to maximize the business value of these digital technologies requires accountants to have a working understanding of how the technologies work, to understand the current and potential use cases for these technologies, and to understand how their stakeholders can leverage these technologies to enhance efficiency, differentiation, and agility. In this chapter, we provide an introductory overview of the technologies, how they work, their business value, example use cases, common terminologies, and example vendors and platforms.
