Page 2 - Harvard Business Review (November-December, 2017)

FROM THE EDITOR

THE NEW When most of us think of augmented reality—if

we think of it at all—we probably see Pokémon Go
monsters or weird Snapchat filters. But AR, the
REALITY OF technology that superimposes digital images on

the physical world, is a lot more than a few cool
BUSINESS apps. As Michael Porter, of Harvard Business
School, and James Heppelmann, the CEO of PTC,
explain in this issue’s Spotlight package, the
technology is poised to reshape how we learn, make
decisions, and operate within the physical world.
The implications for business are both strategic and
staggering: AR will “change how enterprises serve
customers, train employees, design and create
products, and...ultimately, how they compete.”
Though still in its infancy, the technology
is already being used to powerful effect.
Organizations as diverse as Facebook, Amazon,
GE, the U.S. Navy, and Mayo Clinic are putting
AR to work and seeing substantial improvements
in quality, productivity, and other measures
of performance.
What makes these early successes even more
impressive is that most companies are still
grappling with the two great challenges of the

Adi Ignatius with Harvard Business technological age: the struggle to turn vast amounts
Publishing CEO David Wan
of information into truly useful insights and the
mounting fear that automation is going to wipe out
most jobs. With AR we actually see how data can
be transformed into very real business benefits by
bridging the gap between man and machine.

CHRISTOPHER CHURCHILL

ADI IGNATIUS, EDITOR IN CHIEF

10 HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW NOVEMBER–DECEMBER 2017