Master Thesis
📌 Key facts
Contents
- 💡 Background
- 🦾Who We Are
- 🎯 Goals
- 🧠Topics of Interest
- 🎓 Profile
- 📚 Further Reading
- 📄 Requirements to any Work
- 📬 How to Apply
- 📬 Contact
💡 Background
It is a gaming platform, a virtual retail destination, a training tool, an advertising channel, a digital classroom, a new gateway to digital experiences. The Metaverse seems to be whatever people’s imaginations dream it to be. The launch of Horizon Worlds in 2021 by Meta Platforms and the vision of how the Metaverse could potentially shape many aspects of how we work and socialize, set a new momentum of digital interaction via Web 3.0. First used in 1992 within a Neal Stephenson novel titled "Snow Crash" the Metaverse today is defined as a blockchain technology based 3D virtual shared world where all activities can be carried out with the help of augmented and virtual reality services.
It has the potential to impact everything from employee engagement to customer experience, omnichannel sales and marketing, product innovation, and community building. Examining its potential effect should be part of strategy discussions of every enterprise. For instance, the management of company Coca Cola decided in 2021 to launch a special edition of Coca Cola NFT collectibles on an auction together with 3D creators Tafi. The NFT apparel could also be worn in Decentraland. The initiative resulted in over US$ 1 million in revenue. Another example from the industry is Accenture. The consulting company onboarded 150,000 new employees in the Metaverse during pandemic. With focus on the insurance industry, big player like AXA France also participated in the Metaverse by buying a land within Sandbox for a new customer experience. Additionally AXA World Funds launches the Metaverse Fund, which invests in companies enabling the new virtual experience.
Although the Metaverse seems to have the potential to disrupt existing industries and enable new business models by using that space to replace real life boundaries, the insurance industry still has to figure out how to make revenue and growth of the Metaverse by meeting their (new) customers’ needs.
So what is it that makes the Metaverse so interesting for users? What is driving them, what are their needs and what kind of concerns do they have, where the insurance sector can generate a potential economic impact based on the purpose of being the party of trust and safety.
🦾Who We Are
With around 155,000 employees worldwide, the Allianz Group serves 126 mn customers in more than 70 countries. Additionally Allianz is one of the world's largest asset managers, with third-party assets of 1,966 bn euros under management at year end. At Allianz Kunde und Markt GmbH we strive for a unified customer experience and market control. Within that entity our Growth & Piloting team analyzes disruptive market trends and changed customer requirements. Our main duty is to leverage those trends to the development of e2e - pilot projects: from ideation to roll-out. To meet our customer´s needs within a very short time.
The Chair for Strategy and Organization is focused on research with impact. This means we do not want to repeat old ideas and base our research solely on the research people did 10 years ago. Instead, we currently research topics that will shape the future. Topics such as Agile Organizations and Digital Disruption, Blockchain Technology, Creativity and Innovation, Digital Transformation and Business Model Innovation, Diversity, Education: Education Technology and Performance Management, HRTech, Leadership, and Teams. We are always early in noticing trends, technologies, strategies, and organizations that shape the future, which has its ups and downs.
🎯 Goals
Against this backdrop, the aim of this master’s thesis is (i) to unveil the motives and concerns of users in the Metaverse, (ii) to identify potential solutions for insurers to address the concerns of users in the Metaverse, and (iii) to develop a concept of implementing the most valuable solutions. To achieve this objective, the master’s thesis formulates the following three research questions (RQ):
- RQ1: What are the motives and concerns of users in the Metaverse?
- RQ2: What are potential solutions for addressing the concerns of users in the Metaverse?
- RQ3: How can the most valuable solutions be implemented to address the concerns of users in the Metaverse?
The outcome of this master’s thesis is to bring more clarity regarding the incentives of users being present in the Metaverse and to provide a better understanding of typical issues of users in the Metaverse that can be addressed by insurers. In addition, this thesis’ results entail a collection of insurance-related solutions and a concept of the most valuable solutions including a set of recommendations for action.
To answer the above stated research questions, this master’s thesis employs a mixed-method approach consisting of a structured literature review and semi-structured interviews.
🧠Topics of Interest
- Science in all-new areas
- Disruptive business model innovations
- Gaming in decentralized environments
🎓 Profile
- Reliable and self-driven
- Enthusiasm for new business models / insurance / blockchain / gaming
- Ability to do sophisticated internet, desk research, and connect with practitioners
- Passionate to learn more about the future and do research with impact
📚 Further Reading
Value creation in the metaverse - The real business of the virtual world. McKinsey & Companyhttps://www.mckinsey.com/~/media/mckinsey/business%20functions/marketing%20and%20sales/our%20insights/value%20creation%20in%20the%20metaverse/Value-creation-in-the-metaverse.pdf
📄 Requirements to any Work
We do not want your research to gather dust in some corner of bookshelf but make it accessible to the world. Thus, we warmly encourage you to create some or all of the following:
- Infograph - visually represent some of your work (find examples here)
- Slide Deck - summarize your research and possibly present it
- Extract most important sequences from podcasts, videos, and other media
- 3-4 Tweets about the most important findings and summarising the topic
- optional: Medium Article - let people outside the university know about your research and start your personal brand
📬 How to Apply
If you are interested, please contact Nadine Biber and Prof. Dr. Isabell Welpe (click the button to email both) by submitting your CV and grade report. Please also briefly outline your tentative research idea (research question, data and methods, possible outcomes with a tentative outline all in word as *.docx)
We're greatly looking forward to hearing more about you!
📬 Contact
Allianz Kunde und Markt GmbH, Wachstumsimpulse & Pilotierung Nadine Biber
👉 nadine.biber@allianz.de
Chair for Strategy and Organization
Isabell Welpe
👉 welpe@tum.de