To create Virtual Office Tours, Toyota High System turned to industry leader InstaVR. The ease-of-use and cross-platform publishing of InstaVR was a natural fit for Toyota High System’s needs. They quickly and easily authored their first immersive office tour experience, publishing it to the HTC Vive. This application was featured at the Japan VR Summit in Nagoya (May, 2017).

The recruiting team continues to use InstaVR-authored virtual office tours to generate interest in potential employees, leading to lines of college students waiting to view them at job fairs. Viewers are virtually transported in the HTC Vive headset to the company’s offices in Kariya, Japan. Toyota High System has been so happy with InstaVR’s platform that they’ve started to offer virtual reality tour application building as a service to many of their own clients as well.

Toyota High System, a wholly owned subsidiary of Toyota Industries Corporation, provides a wide range of IT services, including to its parent company. The business was founded in 1991 in Kariya, Japan. Since then, it has grown to over 345 employees on the strength of $63 Million USD per year in sales (fiscal year 2015).

Virtual Reality saw widespread growth and adoption in 2017. So it’s not surprising that Toyota High System, an IT services firm based in Japan, became interested in using the technology. Their first use case: Virtual Office Tours.

The subsidiary of Toyota Industries Corporation has grown to over 345 employees in recent years. Recruiting skilled employees is a key driver of their financial success. So job fairs, particularly on college campuses, have become important events for them.

The Human Resources department, recognizing VR’s immersive qualities, envisioned a way for potential employees to virtually visit their Kariya campus. This VR experience would:

1. Create buzz at the college job fair, leading to more foot traffic to their booth

2. Transport users to their office park through immersive VR, shown on high-end VR headsets

3. Create a memorable and educational experience, leaving potential employees with a more favorable view of the company

But before authoring and publishing their Virtual Office Tours, they needed to find the right technology partner.

Before embarking on recording and publishing their VR tours, the human resources team at Toyota High System sought out a partner company whose core competency is Virtual Reality. Their main selection criteria was:

1. Ease of authoring. Despite being an IT services company, the recruiting team at Toyota High System knew they wanted an easy-to-use platform. They didn’t want to waste time or energy coding VR apps.
2. Localized language and support. Being a Japanese company, they required a platform that could support Japanese characters, as well as a localized interface.
3. Publish across VR platforms. They initially thought they’d publish to Gear VR. But as the VR headset industry changes quickly, they wanted to leave their options open.

InstaVR checked all the boxes. The drag-and-drop, one-click publishing of InstaVR meant that members of the recruiting team could author apps without any outside involvement. With an office in Tokyo, including Customer Support, Toyota High System knew InstaVR could meet their language needs. And publishing cross-platform is one of InstaVR’s main selling points.

Selecting InstaVR was an easy choice.

The first step in Authoring their VR app was recording 360-degree on-site videos. Toyota High System chose to use a “guided tour” approach, with an employee introducing the tour from outside the offices. The VR Office Tour then transitions to 360-degree videos of the interior, with the guide showcasing the offices and discussing the benefits of working for the company. You also get to meet a few employees themselves.

The final step in the VR experience was publishing. The initial instinct was to publish to Gear VR, a solid mobile VR headset. However, with InstaVR’s one-click publishing approach, Toyota High System was easily able to transition to publishing the same experience to the HTC Vive. And just a few months later, HTC Vive for Macs.

Mr. Osawa Takehito, Solution Sales Department, explains the publishing decision: “Initially, we created a ‘VR Office Tour’ for enabling candidates to virtually visit our offices using InstaVR’s GearVR output feature. By supporting HTC Vive, it is now also possible for our app users to watch for a longer time with higher picture quality. Toyota High System can broaden the range of VR experiences we produce by utilizing HTC Vive output capability.”

After quickly and easily publishing their Vitual Office Tour using InstaVR, it was time for Toyota High System to showcase their VR. Using the HTC Vive, the company’s recruiters were able to generate massive interest among college students at job fairs. Using VR at exhibition booths has been shown to increase foot traffic. Using such an immersive technology also gives them an edge in creating a memorable impression of what working at Toyota High System is like.

Following initial success, the company presented their VR experiences at the Japan VR Summit in Nagoya on May 30th and May 31st. The feedback has been so positive that Toyota High System has begun to offer VR production services for their clients. Other businesses can contract with them to create Virtual Office Tours, particularly focused on display at college job fairs.

All of this was made possible by InstaVR’s simple-to-use, cross-publishing VR platform. What used to take weeks or months could be done in days. And the ROI and impact on employee recruiting has been incredibly significant.