The Most Innovative AR/VR start-ups in India 2021
Would you tell us about AUGRAY (Vision and Mission)?
As the saying goes, Tell me ‘I will forget” (Radios/ audio reach) Show me “I might remember” (TV, Digital, etc) Involve me “I will understand” (XR technology) We were looking for a technology XR and were convinced this would disrupt.
Augray aims to enable brands in providing immersive experiences to their customers for effective communication.
The versatility of AR/VR being easy to adapt on any device empowers customers with valuable visual experiences. Augray provides this amicable medium to consume information like never before!
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How do you stay on top of changes in the process, changes in thought of industries that you are going to look at more now?
With over 7+ years of R&D evolved from a 2G network and smartphones to the current technology and infrastructure scenario, we have learned a lot. With the wisdom of learning, we have been constantly improving our 3 prong approach that is needed to deliver a successful ROI on XR investment. Those 3 are scalable and flexible technology that can constantly provide Suresh Thankavel
Augray has served many verticals and has overcome Founder varied XR experiences, User-centric visual content that provides an AWE! and the execution. All 3 are essential and interconnected for the successful adoption of XR technology. We have created a process to use XR in all customer touchpoints creating the most essential attention grabbing to attract, generate leads, reward/provide knowledge, increase sales conversion and re-engage as a platform. This reduces Cost per lead, Conversion and increases ROI by just enabling XR to the existing sales and marketing investment. We have expanded our product and solution offering to Manufacturing, e-Commerce, Sales & Marketing enablement, employee rewards & redemption. many challenges in the market. Due to its virtual nature, nothing could affect the proceedings of AR, even the pandemic couldn’t. AR is always the stardom of Augray.
While looking at the overall processes, what might be the hindrance for the better outcome?
XR is a proven technology in yielding results and we have proven repeatedly by yielding returns in 10 folds from Fortune 100 companies to SMEs.
From our experience, it’s not about having the XR solution (experience) alone that produces the magic, it is also about the execution and varied contents. If the marketing efforts are not done right, the campaign will not yield results.
If the content is not tailored to the audience; it will not work either. The result also depends on the execution (marketing, education, or demonstration) and consumer-specific contents. We at Augray educate our customers on all these 3 important parts and provide the knowledge of the product/ technology aspects, content and execution strategies for our customers to pay attention and handhold them for successful execution.
Why choose AUGRAY?
Augray has constantly been innovating and providing solutions to brands. Here is a testimonial from a Fortune 100 customer who was delighted in 2014 for their first campaign producing a record return “This Christmas activation we did was fantastic and was a milestone for all of us at Coke.
On behalf of Coca-Cola, I want to thank everybody at Augray for all the support we got to brainstorm, ideas and all the little things I wanted to change at every stage. Looking forward to working again with all of you for the rest”. We continue to delight over 100’s of customers and we hope to continue. Today we have productized our solution offerings with a focused business vertical, quick turnarounds and at a cost to engage small and expand.
What Inspires AUGRAY to use AR technology in the sales sector of other companies?
Being a technology agnostic, we would be able to tailor our product offerings for a waste market segment. This made us focus on creating AR technology for a wider audience (sales). Today, we have product offerings tailored for all key aspects of sales & marketing in creating awareness, reducing the consideration timeline and conversion at the decision-making stages.
What kind of support you needed when you started AUGRAY?
Augray was born in the early stages of 2G technology during the year 2013, where there was scarce research and less data about Augmented Reality. Technology (hardware), infrastructure (internet bandwidth) and lack of engineering talents for AR/VR. Also, the lack of awareness about AR technology for business adoption were some of the hurdles.
What are your views on today’s industry scenario? What is your strategy to reach new industries and new customers?
Technology adoption, Though, XR was accepted and considered as a disruptive technology/solution by business there was a lack of urgency in adopting.
shifting from the normal avenues or behaviour was slow until the Pandemic (COVID). This changed the views for businesses to adopt now.
What was predicted as a 2022/23 adoption now has reduced by a year or more and we see businesses are compelled for alternate options in Sales & Marketing, product demos and various other aspects.
How does AUGRAY work on making the industry better? What can be expected from AUGRAY in the upcoming years?
Our enterprise solutions help to provide the knowledge necessary for a decision-maker instantly reducing the sales cycle. How do we do this? We perform by enabling the product experience in various dimensions of decision-making criteria on performance, stability, fitment and various other values that are experienced virtually using XR. This is helping businesses to reach customers virtually providing the product experience instantly reducing the cost of sales in 2 digits, increasing the lead and conversion over 30+% with less than 1/4th of the traditional Sales & Marketing investment.
We plan to release newer versions of our product portfolio this year for; Manufacturing helps manufacturers of all types deliver and demonstrate products virtually (Web VR — Virtual Showroom, App-based Experience, Web AR Experience, Print Augmentation, Virtual Expo, Virtual Showroom, VR Deployment, Virtual troubleshooting and XR training) are other cost effective solutions. Convert e-commerce websites into AR Commerce by providing instant product experience and virtual product fit, increasing the conversions using cloud-based SAS solutions.
Web based XR experience to enable various touchpoints using XR that amplifies ROI on most of the traditional Sales & Marketing investments over 30%. An employee engagement — reward & recognition platform that helps leaders be at employees’ places virtually in 3D. AR Business cards — Convert your existing business cards into an AR experience business card.
With just point and experience using a mobile camera and no mobile app needed. Provides a higher recall factor, delivers visual product/ service information instantly.
Explain the AUGRAY — Founder/ CEO’s journey to date, and how AUGRAY tackled any initial struggles?
What if you can interact and be a part of the 3D characters in the picture book? What if you become a part of the scene, and their friends’ list and hang out wherever they go?
Asking these questions made him intrigued and excited with his imagination, and this led me to file a patent for the technology of Characters coming to life in the books.- Suresh Thankavel, CEO of AugRay.
A substantial amount of research and development by the team led to finding the possibility and foreseeing the future of this technology. Then came the time Augray was founded in 2014, the entity is especially focused on Augmented and Virtual reality along with the implementation of extended reality, focused on Sales & Marketing enablement. Thanks to our customers who believed in us during the initial stages of our R&D efforts when we delivered a new tech feature. Augray focuses on the efficiency of the product, the consistency in delivery and maintenance which has been noted and appreciated by many of the clients such as Puma, Coca-Cola, Nippon paints, PayPal, Oppo, Tata Motors, Titan, Samsung, Videocon, Dell, and much more.