Customer Introduction

Vodafone is a global telecommunications company headquartered in the UK, providing mobile, fixed-line, and internet services across Europe, Africa, and Asia. Known for innovation and extensive networks, it serves millions of customers, offering solutions for both individuals and businesses.

The Goal

Improve employee presentation skills and confidence by re-creating the Vodafone Pavilion in VR.

The goal for the team at VirtualSpeech was to re-create the Vodafone UK Pavilion in virtual reality (VR), so that employees could practice their public speaking skills.

In VR, they can practice in various virtual environments, upload their own presentation slides and notes, receive instant automated feedback, as well as track progress within the app. Managers can also track learner completion and progress, and more easily measure ROI.

The Pavilion itself is a large, conference room venue that's often used for in-person training, with a complex layout and room for a large number of attendees. The aim was for the virtual simulation to be complete in time to demo at Vodafone Learning Week, and continue to be used for months afterwards as a tool for communications training.

The Solution: Creating the Pavilion

With the Learning Week fast approaching, the VirtualSpeech team had around 6 weeks to re-create the pavilion in VR. After visiting the site and taking photos of the venue, the team got to work with designing the initial layout and texturing the scene.

After frequently updating Vodafone with progress of the build and implementing feedback, Vodafone and VirtualSpeech were happy with the final results and the scene was fully rendered. Then, the virtual audience was added into the scene and Vodafone branding added to other areas of the app. The app was then ready for Vodafone employees to start using with their Oculus Go headsets.

Example of the Pavilion in real life compared to in VR

Above: Photo panorama of the Pavilion. Below: A similar angle of the Pavilion built in VR, shown in the VirtualSpeech app.

Building the Pavilion in VR

Above: VR re-creation of the Pavilion. Below: Virtual audience added to the Pavilion. Virtual buttons can also be seen, which trigger the features described below, such as the speech analysis.

Results and Benefits

A brief user survey conducted within the app showed that 93% of employees would recommend VirtualSpeech to a colleague. This is really encouraging for a new technology that very few employees will have used before.

A further 91% of respondents would like to see more VR training at Vodafone, which is a positive signal for the engagement and effectiveness of VR learning experiences as a whole.

With this project, Vodafone UK have been able to introduce VR soft skills training into the organisation in a structured and effective way.

• Employees have the opportunity for on-demand, realistic practice in the Vodafone Pavilion before delivering a presentation in the Pavilion in front of a real audience
• Learners receive feedback on their performance, which they can instantly use to improve, tracking their performance each time they practice
• Employees can practice a range of other presentation and public speaking skills in the additional VirtualSpeech VR scenarios provided such as a meeting room, sales pitch, and press conference
• Performance analytics and feedback data provided within the app ensures employees know which areas they need to work on, and managers or admins can view learner’s areas of strength and improvements as well. This can help inform both learner and manager about any gaps in their skills which require additional training