Innovations That Inspire
ExE-6netic Immersive Virtual Reality
Innovation Statement
This groundbreaking virtual reality marketing case study uses a combination of practical immersion and academic concepts to help students enrich analytical skills, develop intellectual agility, and find solutions to business problems.
Call to Action
The ExE (experiential education) learning process is fully in line with the development of experiential learning at NEOMA Business School. The school’s objective is to facilitate the direct development of practical skills in its students rather than merely transmit academic knowledge.
This skills development transpires through a combination of practical immersion and concepts previously studied in class or at the same time as the immersive experience. This innovation enables the school to make the simulation a direct part of the classroom experience and to facilitate skill development through the theory-to-practice loop. Thus, students are made actors in the learning process. They travel systemically within the organization and choose the route they take to discover it. Finally, by importing varied organizational contexts into the classroom through immersive virtual reality, the system gives students an opportunity to enrich their analytical skills, develop their intellectual agility, and find solutions to unstable problems in a constantly changing world.
Innovation Description
The ExE-6netic Immersive Virtual Reality case study (in French and English) is designed to enable students, from undergraduate to MBA level, equipped with a virtual reality headset, a smartphone, and the application ExE-6netic, to plunge into a mobile phone repair and accessories outlet. Students visit it, observe it, critically analyze it, and propose improvements.
As actors in their own learning process, students travel around the store discovering people, spaces, products, and the organizational structure. They witness everyday scenes through a virtual lense through which they can choose to view videos or new areas in a 360-degree format. As part of the course, students can work individually or in groups to solve the problem presented by their teacher. Depending on the course learning objectives, this problem can be:
- Technical: understanding an innovative marketing method.
- Operational: optimizing the store layout and showcasing products.
- Strategic: analyzing choices in terms of brand strategy.
The exercises last anywhere from 90 minutes to six hours.
In addition to this immersive multimedia tool, students benefit from additional information resources (learner’s guide, videos, infographics, market studies, company reports, etc.), to help deepen their analysis, and thus the effectiveness of the recommendations they develop.
Impact
Immersive virtual reality makes it possible to use a range of real-life (nonlinear) situations effectively in the classroom to develop skills, avoid learning routines, and create an interactive and sensorial experience that promotes active student participation and re-motivates them to develop their analysis and managerial recommendations in teams.
With its innovative, technological aspect in higher education, immersive virtual reality boosts student interest and motivates them to discover technology in environments that are not known for being particularly digitized. Students will become more receptive, more attentive—thus participating more, more engaged in their learning, and more committed to solving the problem presented by the teacher.