Silversea Media receives SBR tech award for Digital - Furniture & Fixture

Their Collaborative Industry Project is a furniture industry first, producing a revolutionary virtual experience.

By introducing a true-to-life digital in-store experience to the furniture market, Silversea Media (S) Pte. Ltd. (Silversea Media) has successfully addressed the market’s primary concern: creating new and larger sources of demand through capturing greater interest and supplying instant unbound access to a broader scope beyond physical stores.

For furniture retailers in the rapidly evolving market, lower traffic, increased top line pressure and progressively flattened margins are issues that need to be resolved. Success in addressing these dilemmas greatly relies on groundbreaking approaches that can provide customers a unique shopping experience.

Singapore Business Review (SBR) acknowledges the significance of such trailblazing innovation, especially in industries that are experiencing increasing competition and facing external threats from asset-light virtual platforms. The Technology Excellence Awards (TEA) was launched to uncover winners whose main work is shaped by innovation, idiosyncrasy, success, influence and dynamism. In this spirit, Singapore Business Review awarded Silversea Media the 2020 SBR TEA trophy in the Digital - Furniture and Fixture category. The content production company incorporated their trademark AR and VR technology to greatly transform consumers’ furniture shopping experience.

Since their foundation in 2017, Silversea Media has been supplying clients throughout South East Asia and beyond personalised solutions built on their proprietary immersive technology. Developing 4D, VR, AR and MR solutions for both business and education sectors, the media technology innovation company champions the use of new immersive technologies to foster digital advancement that drives superior growth and learning outcomes. To date, Silversea Media has expanded throughout the ASEAN region, with full time on-the-ground operations in six countries, including Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam, Cambodia and the Philippines, and has strategic partnerships in China, Europe and Latin America.

To maximise their reach, Silversea Media seeks to implement these innovations with various cases and industries, such as retailing, real estate, hospitality, exhibitions & museums, and a number of others, including, of course, the furniture and fixture sector.

Through their Collaborative Industry Project (CIP), the immersive media solution provider successfully utilised technology to stimulate a substantive transformation of the furniture retailing industry’s outdated omnipresent business model, originating from a product-centric direction to a customer-centric and experiential-driven approach.

Silversea Media applies its immersive technology to create a “Virtual Tour” of an existing physical venue, such as a showroom, a big-box or a shop, which enables furniture prospects to experience merchants’ physical stores and browse brand products in 3D with any device and without the need for any extra cumbersome and expensive apparatus, such as VR headsets.

In a similar fashion, Silversea Media can also create a “CGI Virtual Tour” of a virtual showroom, virtual store or virtual exhibition—a realistic, CGI-powered space made from scratch that clients can design to their precise specifications, even without a physical location to scan. Silversea Media’s CGI Virtual Tours have the option of embedding a Virtual Assistant, an interactive tour guide who can present a company and its product offering in a new and innovative way. If desired, Silversea Media’s Virtual Tours and CGI Virtual Tours have the ability to collect big data gleaned during customer visits, to help businesses better understand users' preferences and consumption behavior.

Thanks to these Virtual Tours, furniture retailers can now provide remote access to their stores, where clients can acquire a more realistic sense of the items compared to the unrefined and unsophisticated 2D presentations that are present in most online-restricted platforms. Customers can also enjoy its omni-channels to enhance their experience.

When customers “walk through” the virtual store, they can access and calculate furniture sets and individual pieces, perform measurements and instigate transactions. Most importantly, they can shop anytime and anywhere, notwithstanding the published operating hours of retailers’ physical stores.

Silversea Media’s CIP initiative is the first VR immersive solution for the local furniture industry and is backed by Enterprise Singapore. Silversea Media gained their support after a cut-throat process that involved a crowded field of strong applicants. It is also the first breakthrough to be commercially adopted by the Lion City’s furniture retailers and endorsed by the sector’s industry associations.

By incorporating these new technology-powered solutions and transforming the market’s visionary angle, furniture retailers can remain relevant and secure. They can also rejuvenate their sales and marketing strategies.

Silversea Media’s founder and CEO, Niu Yuhong, remarked, “We believe that equipping furniture retailers with immersive innovations will allow them not only to effectively digitise their stores, but will also help them to establish greater customer loyalty, generate new revenue channels and expand business opportunities beyond Singaporean territory.”

“Adopting a customer experience-oriented approach that leverages immersive media can further help broaden businesses’ knowledge in digital marketing, e-commerce and data analytics, all critically important elements for moving to an international scale,” she added.

Watch the interview below to know more about their winning project:

The Technology Excellence Awards, presented by Singapore Business Review, was held via video conferencing throughout the first and third week of June.

This year’s nominations were judged by a panel consisting of Daryl Pereira, Head of Cyber at KPMG; Cheang Wai Keat, Head of Advisory Services in Singapore and ASEAN Technology Consulting Leader at Ernst & Young; Chin Chee Choon, Advisory Leader and Assurance Director at Nexia TS; Rizwi Wun, Partner, Acting Head of Intellectual Property and Technology Practice Group at RHTLaw Asia; Carolyn Chin-Parry, Managing Director and Digital Accelerator Leader at PwC.

If you would like to join the 2021 awards and be acclaimed for your company’s exceptional technological innovations, please email Julie Anne Nuñez at [email protected]