Fujifilm Sees 6x Boost in Open Innovation Hub Visitors with Matterport

Building Business Partnerships at Fujifilm’s Open Innovation Hub

Founded in 1934 as a pioneering photographic film manufacturer in Japan, Fujifilm has evolved by leveraging its advanced and proprietary technologies across a range of business sectors. Over the years, the company has commercialized inventions in healthcare, life sciences, cosmetics, and materials.  Fujifilm’s technology has been used to create hair dyes and motorcycle seat covers, to name just a few applications.   

With a vast trove of intellectual property, Fujifilm’s Open Innovation Hubs play a key role in promoting dialogue with business partners, customers, and prospects. Located in the United States, Europe, and Japan, the Open Innovation Hubs have featured hands-on exhibits of the company’s cutting-edge technologies and hosted in-person meetings to facilitate business development. When the COVID-19 pandemic made in-person meetings impossible, Matthew Parker, Digital Marketer and Technical Presenter at the company’s U.S. hub in Santa Clara, California, explored alternatives.

Parker initially included a tour of the hub as part of video conference calls. He used a gimbal-mounted mobile phone on a cart in his attempts to smoothly move around the space, highlighting the hub’s exhibits about Fujifilm technologies and capabilities. However, the video conferencing software couldn’t fully capture the rich detail of exhibits in the hub, and it was difficult for meeting hosts to orchestrate visuals of the exhibits, slides, and primary speaker faces. 

Professional Digital Twins Captured with Fast and Easy Online Ordering

Upon discovering Matterport Inc.™, ​​Parker captured a digital twin of the hub with his company iPhone. Matterport for Mobile app on iOS provided a fast, simple solution for completing the capture, with an excellent camera that Parker already had in his pocket. A huge leap forward compared to the prior video conferencing approach, the digital twin allowed Parker to quickly create a 3D virtual tour of the Open Innovation Hub that could be included either as part of a host-led presentation during online meetings or made available for customer self-service. 

In pursuit of an even higher quality capture of the hub’s 3,000 square foot space and multitude of exhibits, Parker placed an online order with Matterport Capture Services On-Demand. The service is available to customers within a 35-mile radius of dozens of U.S. cities, which makes requesting a professional digital twin capture of any property fast and easy. 

Within an hour, Parker had his appointment confirmed with a highly skilled, local Capture Technician, equipped with a Matterport Pro2 3D camera. “In just a few clicks, I was able to schedule a capture of our facility through Matterport Capture Services On-Demand. The Capture Technician clearly had a lot of experience, did an amazing job onsite, and quickly delivered the digital twin,” Parker says.

The Matterport Capture Technician first talked strategy with Parker, to ensure the 3D scan clearly captured all the exhibits showcased on the walls and tables at different elevations throughout the Open Innovation Hub. The goal was to recreate the experience visitors would have if they were there in person. Within two hours, the Capture Technician completed the job as specified by Parker, and delivered it within 24 hours.

For Fujifilm, it made sense to hire a professional for the digital twin capture process due to the complexity of the site and to test the output before scanning the other Open Innovation Hubs across the world. “Matterport Capture Services On-Demand is very affordable and the results are brilliant. It’s a tremendous value. It’s remarkable how quickly the service helped us create a high-caliber result,” says Parker. 

Immersive Tour Includes Multimedia Exhibits

Using the Matterport digital twin, Parker designed an interactive, virtual tour that’s fun, safe, and convenient for visitors to explore. The high-definition visuals look great whether participants are using a PC, tablet, phone—or even an Oculus Quest virtual reality headset with Matterport’s VR Mode. 

Visitors can wander through the hub’s Collaboration Zone and Creation Zone, plus step right up to the six tables and various wall exhibits throughout the Touch Zone. The tour incorporates videos and slides, with Mattertags calling out highlights about exhibits on medical science, functional materials, patterning and printing, and more. 

The 3D virtual tour has showcased Fujifilm’s transformative technology portfolio to large numbers of people who might not have been able to visit the Open Innovation Hub in person due to distance or the hub’s physical capacity constraints. Indeed, in less than six months after its debut, the digital twin of the Open Innovation Hub was toured more than 1,000 times by 600 unique visitors. That’s a more than six-fold increase in half the time compared to in-person visits.

“We’d be hard-pressed to host that many people in person. With our Matterport-powered virtual tour, we are helping hundreds of prospects and partners explore our technology portfolio, which expands our audience beyond our physical walls, generates new business, and enhances the Fujifilm brand,” says Parker.

The convenience of anytime, anywhere, self-service access to Open Innovation Hub tours also extends the availability of Fujifilm’s lean, four-person team. Now, they have more time to assist with other business development activities because they’re not occupied with host-led tours. 

And Parker continues to add content to the 3D virtual tour. “Matterport isn’t just for selling your house. For a company like ours that’s always developing new technologies to bring to light, the possibilities are endless,” he says. 

Creating Connections for Future Business Opportunities

Matterport 3D virtual tours also provide an important way for the Open Innovation Hub team to build new business relationships. Contact information for the hub’s staff appears at the top left of the tour, supporting the team’s goal to schedule follow-up appointments with visitors intrigued by what they see. 

In addition to featuring the 3D virtual tour on the company website, Parker promotes it in newsletters and his email signature, generating positive word-of-mouth and interest from colleagues across the company. The Tokyo location of the Open Innovation Hub is working on capturing its own Matterport digital twin to produce a virtual tour highlighting its exhibits, some of which are not available at other hub locations. 

In addition, the Fujifilm leadership team has tasked Parker with collaborating with subsidiaries in North America to explore how digital twin technologies can benefit their business units. “Matterport for iPhone will help me provide a proof of concept and showcase how they can use Mattertags or Notes to collaborate within digital twins and gain efficiencies in their business units,” he says. “Then, they can contact Matterport Capture Services On-Demand to obtain a more professional, accurate digital twin.”  

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ABOUT FUJIFILM

Fujifilm is a global pioneer in imaging, healthcare, highly functional materials, optical devices, graphic systems, recording media, and industrial products. Its Open Innovation Hub in Santa Clara, California, United States—one of three worldwide—allows customers and partners to explore the company’s technical expertise and core technologies to promote collaboration and new business initiatives.

https://www.fujifilm.com

HEADQUARTERSTokyo, Japan

INDUSTRY Medical, Imaging, and document solutions

CHALLENGEExpand accessibility of Open Innovation Hub to promote the Fujifilm brand and new business development

PRODUCTS Matterport Capture Services On-Demand Matterport for Mobile app on iOS

SOLUTIONVirtual Innovation Hub tour powered by Matterport creates an immersive, 3D experience to help Fujifilm partners, customers, and prospects learn about the company’s wide range of technologies

Results

• Hosts 6 times the number of visitors compared to in-person visits

• Amplifies Fujifilm’s innovations to thousands of people who cannot visit the Hub otherwise   

• Extends the availability of Fujifilm’s lean, four-person hub team to help with other business development activities versus hosting in-person tours