Chapter 1: Introduction

We ask Siri about the weather and ask Alexa to order us clothes, diapers, and garam masala. We can monitor and control access to our homes from miles away. We can dissect a human form without dissecting a cadaver. We can fly around Mt. Everest and feel the cold and walk on Antarctica ensconced in electromechanical gear. Soon, we can touch each other even though we are miles apart. Our imagination will be kindled. Imagine tomorrow. Will tomorrow feel magical, I wonder? Will reality tomorrow's experience be realish, I wonder?

For marketing managers, it is a fact that major technological innovations are changing the way we can serve our customers better. The technologies of interconnectivity, computation, sensors, mobile or wireless connectivity, machine learning, vivid virtual representations, and hardware interfaces are advancing rapidly. These advances require us to rethink how we can compete in this new environment and serve customers better. The information, communications, and computational technologies that are advancing so rapidly have four major new relevant technology bundles or technology environments – virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), mixed reality (MR), and Internet of Everything (IoE). When these technology environments involve customers and their interactions, we shall call them customer technology environments or CTEs. These technology environments exist together as well as with existing environments (such as ecommerce, TV, print) and will work together in many instances. By some estimates the global VR and AR markets together are estimated to grow to be over $200 billion by 2022 (www.Statista, 591181). The global spending on IoE is estimated to grow to over $440 billion (Market Watch, 2018, Statista, 688762) by 2022.