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We decided to sponsor the 10th ID World Congress in Milan this year, not only because the patroness, Sophie de la Giroday, did a beautiful translating job: the participants' list is astounding. And: no boring, hour-long presentations, but, rather, 15-minute brief introductions about the company and her visions. Plus a lot of networking.

But what does a distributor have to do with all of this? Good question. We thought about it long and hard: technology is a wonderful thing, but in order for it to be interesting for the distributor, it has to be sold in large volumes. Discussions with end customers are interesting, but Jarltech does not sell to end customers.

Despite this, I think that we, as a special distributor, must show manufacturers and customers alike that we can choose to support technology which does not automatically promise millions in turnover. We also need to be partners with small-series manufacturers. Of course, we need the know-how to decide if we need two or five manufacturers in our portfolio for, say, RFID technology. Plus, for our own use, we would naturally like to convince the manufacturer to follow our path early on, before he builds up a network of 300 direct partners in Europe, and then has to painfully convert to distribution in five years.

The end customers knows that a reliable distributor needs to stand behind his system integrator. And we want to make our presence known.

First and foremost the priority at such a conference is not that we as sponsors have our logo displayed everywhere - it is more important to show presence early on when networking in the technology community.

Oh yes, if you are interested in our segment, have a look at www.idworldonline.com