Arizona State University business students are using headsets in a pilot project that lets them work in a virtual coffee shop.
West Virginia University students started running Mountaineer Ice Cream earlier this spring and lost $14 million in a single day. However, the students changed their business tactics that day and turned the loss into a profit in just an hour.
While such a drastic change in the business world is unrealistic, such a scenario is possible in the world of virtual reality, which business schools are increasingly using in their curricula. Thanks to it, supply chain management, logistics and operations are becoming not only more comprehensible to students, but also more engaging.
“A lot of supply chain management is experiential. Few students understand what supply chain management is, even after they declare a major,” said John Saldanha, professor of global supply chain management at WVU. “It allows them to take something apart, look at it and say, ‘This is what we learned,’ and then learn from their mistakes.”
Virtual reality is not up-to-date in the academic world, it has already been used in medical schools and on-campus mentoring programs, and helping students improve their public speaking skills. But as more corporations operate the technology for training, the increased operate of VR has made its way into business school classrooms.
Arizona State University began working in virtual reality with a Dreamscape Learn partnership in 2020. The university partnered with the lab and launched a pilot program last fall to test a student-run virtual café and teach students the ins and outs of supply chain management without the risk of running a real business. The virtual experience also goes deeper than the surface-level knowledge gained from visiting a real business.
“There’s a long history of simulation in business education and a long history of case studies,” said Daniel Gruber, associate dean for teaching and learning at ASU’s W.P. Carey School of Business. “The virtual reality environment combines some of the best elements of simulation and case studies and allows us to come up with something up-to-date and novel.”
About 160 ASU students have donned VR headsets over the past two semesters and I entered the virtual WP Carey Coffee Shop, where they immediately encounter a long line of customers. Students in the supply chain management course discuss and decide what could lend a hand the store operate more efficiently—which could be adding more employees or more coffee machines—and then implement the plan in real time to see if it results in increased or decreased revenue.
“There’s an immediate reaction of, ‘This is great,’ or, ‘What happened?’” Gruber said of students making decisions in the moment. “I think supply chain is a natural space and place to illuminate in virtual reality. There are so many decisions, and it’s about how they’re made, how they impact customer experiences, organizational experiences, and theories.”
ASU plans to eventually expand the pilot program to include virtual manufacturing plants and hospitals.
West Virginia University is adding virtual reality to its supply chain management curriculum in 2023. The technology allows students to go places they previously couldn’t, whether it’s a remote manufacturing facility or an area normally off-limits to the public.
Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles piloted a virtual reality program earlier this spring that covered nearly two dozen modules, from interview training to pitching. The tech company that developed the program, Bodyswaps, gave students feedback, including whether they used too many filler words like “um” or didn’t operate their hands enough when speaking.
Schwartz believes virtual reality will expand beyond the classroom and become more common in the business world, and that introducing students to virtual reality in undergraduate courses will better prepare them for employment.
Part of our job is to try to imagine what’s on the horizon and make sure our students are prepared.”
Jeffrey Schwartz, Senior Director of Digital Learning and Innovation at Loyola Marymount University
“The question is what will the business world look like in five years — will students work together or in a virtual room?” he said. “Part of our job is to try to imagine what’s on the horizon and make sure our students are prepared.”
Despite all the benefits, professors have also noted the drawbacks of virtual reality. An oft-cited complaint institutions is the cost of VR headsets, which cost between $200 and $500 per set. Some institutions, such as Loyola Marymount, are able to secure grants to cover the cost of a headset, while others, such as WVU, partner with technology companies to receive headsets for free.
Others have noted that while VR increases accessibility in some ways, it can be a barrier for others, including those with visual impairments. Loyola Marymount’s Schwartz suggested that offering desktop or mobile app platforms with the same type of content as virtual reality headsets could address accessibility barriers. Saldanha said students may initially be distracted by the technology itself and focus on the novelty rather than the content.
As these hurdles continue to be overcome, there is a powerful belief emerging among professors that the operate of virtual reality could become the norm in business schools and beyond in the future.
