Cards Australia Exhibition 2004

August  5-6, 2004
by Warwick Bone.

This year, the Cards Australia exhibition/conference was again held in Darling Harbour, Sydney, arguably one of the most picturesque places to hold a conference - but then I'm a little biased I suppose.

Even given my comments about last year's exhibition, I was surprised to see again a reduced number of exhibitors, not to mention the loss of the third day. Yet this is not to be unexpected in an industry that is self-aware, and evolving from a product oriented industry to an application and service based one, but I'll get back to that in a minute.

Attendance at the exhibition was again good this year, and from the comments received from the exhibitors, not only were numbers good but also the quality of the visitors. The decision to co-locate the exhibition with RFID seems to have been a good one. Not only is there a certain amount of cross-over between the two industries, but it also allowed the attendees the chance to explore alternate solutions to their needs. As Lester Doig of Assa Abloy HK said, "We have customers who are looking to take their applications to the next level. This conference allows us to show them first hand some of the other technologies and solutions we have in addition to cards."

Of course, it does depend on your target audience and how well they already know you. One exhibitor commented, "I know all my customers, I am here again for appearance. I've already given away all my swag bags, most of them to tyre kickers."

So, while the "must exhibit for appearance sake" factor is still there, the quality of visitors was not only high, but I also notice a subtle change in the demographic of visitors, albeit from casual observation. In years past the prominent visitors have been mainly from major corporations and government departments, with a focus on the banking and finance sector, who have been interested in the overall issues of the industry. This years these sectors were again represented in force, but the percentage of people from small to medium companies looking for solutions to their specific problems was a lot larger. Hopefully this trend will continue.

What's the driving force?

In deed, when discussing this with various exhibitors, the general consensus was that there is a major shift in focus for the industry. When I asked what was driving the industry today, the Technology, of the Application, the response was predominantly "Application." As David Vacher of VCT put it, "Cards are a bit like Cellphones. People don't care about the technology, GSM, CDMA, whatever, they just want their phone to work."

Frederic Remy of LM Gemplus took it further. "In the past people were looking at the technology and wondering what to do with it. These days, people are coming to us with an application they want to run, or a problem they need to solve, and we recommend the appropriate technology to suit their needs. It is all about what the customer or end user needs not what they can do with the technology."

"There is an exception though, with the Telcos," he said. "They were only using a small portion of the card's capabilities, so they went back and added in some features and additional services to offer the consumer without having to change the basic card."

So, if application is driving the industry, how far do we take those applications and what are the boundaries?

We can, but should we?

Richard Krohn of APSCF commented on the emergence of these privacy issues facing card issuers. "There are so many things we can do with cards by collecting, collating and cross-referencing data to generate consumer consumption patterns and trends, but the big question is should we? For example, how would someone feel if their spouse was to go into a fitting room to try on some clothes, only to see themselves portrayed on a wall-screen garbed in different costumes based on their purchase history? I can speak for myself that I would not be happy at all!"

It is a fast and furious world we live in, where marketing is done at the speed of ones and zeros. It would be tempting indeed to use these facts and figures to blitz the market, but I believe care and caution would be the watchwords in this new-found mine-field.

Cards Australia Conference 2004