Clouds in our sky!

For communication and marketing in our industry, the immediate consequence is the cancellation of SIMposium, which was due to take place, and a limited attendance to other events such as WIMA, in Monaco, or even Cards Asia in Singapore.

Fortunately, the smart card and secure transactions industry, even if it is shipping physical devices, has had for years a strategy consisting in bringing production closer to its customers, thus making it less dependent on air transport. Also, in many cases, customers of our industry have between a few days and a few months of inventory. So we are not the most hardly hit.

Maybe there are some positive consequences. For the first time, European ministers of transport had a pan-European videoconference, rather than a physical meeting. Hopefully, more and more people will rely on modern communication means rather than travelling by air. This will lead to a better allocation of resources, further developments in the virtual economy, and at the end of the day, more opportunities for all markets segments of our industry: telecoms, payment, transport, government and enterprise IDs, and of course convergence between all these.

And clearer skies will come out of the cloud.

Thierry Spanjaard

Chief Editor

Smart Insights