It will bring about changes in the way companies compete, including decision-making and the way they communicate with the physical world.

PTC announced that its CEO, Jim Heppelmann, presented the impact of augmented reality (AR) technology on business and the new value it will bring to industrial markets through an article contributed to the global management journal, Harvard Business Review (HBR).

PTC CEO Jim Heppelman previously co-authored two articles with Professor Michael Porter for the Harvard Business Review on how smart connected products are changing competition and the corporate landscape. Based on research findings, this article covers the roadmap companies must establish before adopting AR and the critical choices faced when integrating AR technology into business strategy and operations.

Augmented reality is a technology impacting companies across all industries, and it is expected to transform how we learn, make decisions, interact with the physical world, and ultimately compete. Coupled with the explosion of IoT data, the influence of augmented reality is also growing as it plays a role in interpreting this information. AR is a technology that bridges the physical and digital worlds, enabling the discovery of new capabilities and securing insights from the torrent of information generated by billions of smart, connected products worldwide.

PTC, a leading company that recognized the potential of AR in the industrial market, acquired the ^Vuforia® augmented reality platform to expand its portfolio and integrated it into its ^ThingWorx® , an industrial IoT innovation platform. With a proven history in product design, manufacturing, and service, PTC secured AR technology to gain capabilities in the areas of visualization, training, and guidance for traditional businesses, while also expanding the scope of communication with physical objects.

PTC CEO Jim Heppelman said, “AR is a critical technology that bridges the gap where the rich digital data generated in IoT environments is not fundamentally connected to the physical world where people’s lives unfold. The ways in which AR transforms business are limitless. It will change everything from how customer service is provided and employees are trained to how products are designed and manufactured, how value chains are managed, and even how companies compete. AR will also establish a powerful presence as a new interface that changes the way people interact in the digital world.”