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CEO Blog

11/08/2017

Eastern Europe's new capital: Sicily!

Me ranting about the locations of vendor events is nothing new....

Me ranting about the locations of vendor events is nothing new. The latest hit: one of our vendors is inviting its Eastern European customers to a partner conference. Correct: the important event where products, markets and sales strategies for the year are meant to be discussed.

But where are they inviting them to? Sicily! A beautiful island, but there is not a single scheduled flight going there from Eastern Europe even during the summer. Each customer therefore has to change at least once. Why Sicily? Every Eastern European capital or major city has direct flights to Vienna, Frankfurt, London and Paris, every day, all year around. It could be so easy ...

Or why not plan a business meeting right where a lot of customers already are, like Budapest, Prague or Warsaw in this case. That would be more efficient, cheaper for most, and many would not even need to travel at all. An especially important point for corporate groups: mind the CO2 footprint!

A trip to a meeting in a metropolis also never is an issue with taxes. A holiday destination topped off with an entertainment programme that is even advertised in the invitation, on the other hand, is a feast for any tax auditor. Strangely enough, it's the American companies who don't understand this, while usually trying to coerce the rest of the world to follow their compliance rules. Especially when this vendor, apart from providing barcode-related products, also provides plenty of parts for American nuclear weapons. Someone posting a funny picture of the beach barbecue on Facebook is hardly avoidable ... and if anybody is laughing at a meeting, the tax office immediately perceives a private background.

At least this time the meeting is taking place before the flight plan changes to winter schedule. Vendors usually like to hold their island meetings after the winter schedule takes effect, because as there are almost no flights then, at least hotel prices drop. What's funny is that there usually is a super cheap flight with Ryanair or Easyjet from the vendor's headquarters to the conference location. Thus their own employees are already cared for. When the customer was king, those were the days :)

10/08/2017

Ultimate annoyance to the paper industry

What would you think of this? You put a pile of used paper into your printer old printouts in black ink on white paper....

What would you think of this? You put a pile of used paper into your printer old printouts in black ink on white paper. You want to print a full-colour diagram on light-blue paper. The printer prints ... but without ... wasting resources. Without using water, the old paper is broken down to its fibres (better than any shredder could do) and put together again in your chosen colour and thickness, and then it's printed.

I would believe that to be a magical development. But I'm late, because this device already exists, as this video shows: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pp-AZ6psL0c

In this case, the printer is not so much a "device" than it is a "machine", as big as a steam train and as expensive as an upper class limousine. Luckily only as a Japanese upper class limousine because this steam train was made by one of our favourite Japanese vendors: Epson.

In my opinion, it is audacious to take the paper and printing industry on this compares to a fight between Tesla and the oil industry. Did you notice the huge ink cartridges in the YouTube video? Just crazy.

Of course, there is nothing that anyone of us could be selling tomorrow. But it will come, and it will solve a massive environmental, cost and time problem. I just wish I will not have to choose between a Tesla and Epson's "paper mill" because both need require space the size of a garage.

So, Epson, please: make the thing smaller, less expensive, and get that market. We can wait those few years.

23/05/2017

Premium Distribution

A trend is making a comeback:

...

A trend is making a comeback:

Does shipping logistics only have to become cheaper (and automatically poorer, as a result), just because Mr. and Mrs. John Q. Public feel like paying very little for it? That's no longer true.

The more we invest into our premium logistics (24-hour warehouse operation, more employees, new types of quality control, continual technological upgrades), the clearer the results are: much less damage during transportation, packaging mistakes drop to much lower levels and there is an enormous increase in speed. Combined with the best parcel services and shipping carriers, this ultimately leads to a reduced workload for the customers. Hard cash!

And look here: performance is rewarded. We enforce (of course, still economical) flat-rate shipping charges because we, for example, are also able to serve end customers on behalf of our resellers, the idea being "order and forget" - with colour-printed "original" reseller packaging slips right up to individual packaging tape.

For free shipping elsewhere you get pseudo parcel services who heartlessly toss the boxes into the rusty van when loading it, and who then drop the well-shaken box at the customer's feet. What a treat for the electronic device inside.

On a side note, a part of "premium" also means that sales employees not only register articles, but they also know which product is needed. When we test the competition the answer comes back to the tune of "I cannot help you without an exact article number." Pitiful. But things can turn funny if you ask the "right" questions. I can amuse myself for days like this. Such as during a discussion about a particular receipt printer, when asking "Just how big is it?" or "Isn't that the neon yellow device?" The answer came back "Yes." to both questions. :) So, that speaks volumes about the training level of the other person.

And because of this we are finally seeing slightly growing profit margins in the channel. Of course there are still customers, let's call the company "Audacious Computing", who expect that we deliver with a negative margin. Oh, and even better that we take care of his 30% returned goods. But the best of all would be to send (in advance) free-of-charge demo devices directly to the end customers: but right now, please! That would mean that we are not a "Premium Distributor", but rather a dumb distributor.

We prefer to work together with the 99% of reasonable resellers, and grow together. "Audacious Computing" might be causing a competitor of ours losses, but even they would realize that the supply of distributors is not limitless.

Apparently, the competition is of the same opinion as I am: Auto-ID and POS is not a broad line topic, but must at least be part of a separate department, and therefore always incurs higher costs. We cannot become solutions providers; that is our customers' job. We can, however, continue to push towards being a part of our customers' solution, and contribute as much as possible to achieving this.

18/05/2017

A hardware showroom in center city?

Star Micronics invited us to the grand opening of its store located in the heart of Frankfurt....

Star Micronics invited us to the grand opening of its store located in the heart of Frankfurt. It is a small, quaint store with Star POS printers and POS systems in the display window, and that in the best location.

But, why?

Does Jarltech also need a showroom in the center of Paris, London, or even cooler, Frankfurt? And without selling anything there? Good question. Upon closer inspection, the concept from Star is quite interesting. Not only is Star on-site, but also the software solutions of three previous ISVs. Plus, Star really wants to actively acquire customers in the neighborhood of the shop, and to educate walk-in customers about the solutions of its software provider.

This suddenly makes sense. Apart from the very small increase in "brand awareness" as a hardware vendor, one generates inquiries for his loyal software houses. And also creates a central place for his trainings or for evening celebration invitations for the local shopkeepers.

Apart from this, the showroom is within sight of the Jarltech Networking Dinner, which is always held in the "Mantis" in the heart of Frankfurt, just like last Friday. Yes, the transition is so good that it hurts: in any case, you will find photos and the video of our event from last week on Facebook and YouTube under "Jarltech".

23/02/2017

Value Add

After Jarltech has boomed upwards in 2016 and achieved 18% growth, we are already looking towards the future....

After Jarltech has boomed upwards in 2016 and achieved 18% growth, we are already looking towards the future. One task of a distributor is to reduce the balance of the reseller. We give credit limits, and we store for you. But in times of low interest rates, it is becoming more and more important to look at the bottom line.

We want added value to continue to be well paid in our industry. But not by pushing hardware without a trade margin, so that you ultimately need to hope for sales of service contracts or managed services. It also requires commitment on your part: Do I really have to sell the customer what he already knows and always orders - and which will always be cheaper on the Internet? Or should I invest a few minutes in convincing customers of a device that is not found on every corner?

All of our vendors offer innovative hardware solutions for the most varying sectors. However, we have realized that »standard« is frequently purchased. If we still had scanners that I started with over 20 years ago in stock today - I bet there would still be reorders for them.

But change is coming: what was unthinkable ten years ago has our technical workshops today regularly overbooked. We see that as our partners, you want to sell the latest technology to users, and know that your added value is in expertise. And that is exactly where we find the asset - through real added value. So, stay on the ball!

Looking back shortly to the beginning: many thanks for a successful business year 2016 - to you, to our vendors and to our employees.

22/12/2016

Down with PowerPoint

First of all, I can not completely forbid PowerPoint at Jarltech....

First of all, I can not completely forbid PowerPoint at Jarltech. Numbers for banks, as well as technical diagrams, occasionally find their way to the screen via PowerPoint. But principally, we have a "no PowerPoint" policy.

Some visitors facial features noticeably fall when we say "just forget about PowerPoint and tell us something about your company". Or wouldn't we rather hold the product in our hands"? Good presentations are simply too rare. "Yes, this is from the marketing department, and we will just skip this page, and the next" does not sound like preparation. And, if you do show slides, then please without text. Of course one would like to take a look at the factory of a vendor ... unfortunately right next to it is a box with 20 technical facts about the factory. This data, if interesting, has been comprehended after one second - but of course the presenter starts to read these numbers one at a timebeautifully looking away from the audience, always with his eyes glued to the screen. For you see, he does not know the figures, not even roughly, because they do not interest him either.

Particularly with Asian companies you will notice that the presentations mostly contain the company history starting from 1965, but rarely something about the future. If you talked about it, your conversation would get a better result. And, interposed questions are of course to be avoided, because then the whole spectacle takes even longer.

When we meet new customers or suppliers, we will first provide them with a small book about Jarltech. It has lots of pictures, and everyone can linger on the page that most interests him. Even hand-outs are even better than PowerPoint - so the speaker, if he is not completely ignorant, will at least register that his listeners (or fellow readers) have already turned ahead five pages out of boredom. If I am a salesman - and arent we all - I have to remember what the person sitting across from me really is interested in, and then take that route.

This is how time-wasting occurs, caused by PowerPoint (not only during preparation, but especially among the target audience), which is hard to outdo. Since we usually do not serve alcohol at meetings, one can not often effectively block out the happenings around him. I can not sleep with my eyes open. In addition, I snore, so that would be noticeable.

Why is it that just because you have an appointment somewhere, and therefore have driven for three hours, you must necessarily sit together for at least an hour? If you have a message which only takes fifteen minutes, then everything is fine. Or else you need a new message, or maybe several, but you do not have to get on someone elses nerves. Unfortunately, in the IT industry not many people are really funny, to make such a meeting entertaining.

So please, bring us products, talk about content, show us interesting pictures - but please do not read any text from the wall. We can do that ourselves. Has anyone ever tried that? Just put a slide with text up on the wall, then keep your mouth shut and let the audience read for themselves? That would probably go faster. This degrades the presenter to the status of a fool though, since he now may only press the "next slide" button. Perhaps, however he does not talk until he is blue in the face, and has the strength to speak about what is seen.

A nice function is the display of the page number at the bottom right. If you see "Slide 4 of 274" that gives me a signal to suddenly receive an important call, causing me to then leave the room and actually do something meaningful. Do you know the apps that call you back at the push of a button? So, just a little touch of the hand is enough, and 20 seconds later the phone rings and my dog calls me, or whoever, but of course urgently. Try it out!

Is that rude? Yes, so in the future you should rather have the courage at the beginning to say what you expect from a conversation, and especially what you already know and do not want to hear again. It would be even better to say right with the invitation: Please, no PowerPoint. Not even printed. And in no case an "introductory presentation before the round of talks" - because when I go there, I am already in the mood for a conversation. And, why increase the tiredness of the business partners right at the beginning?

Recently, in a round of managers who have been dealing with barcodes for 20 years, someone actually read three slides explaining what a 2D barcode is and what you might need it for. Why? Because the slides were there from the presentation the previous day. After all, to remain consistent, the meeting cookies were also from the previous day.

17/11/2016

Equipped for the year-end sprint 2016

Perfect timing in the fourth quarter, Jarltech just opened new space for several thousand pallets, as well as an entirely new logistics area, which doubles shipping...

Perfect timing in the fourth quarter, Jarltech just opened new space for several thousand pallets, as well as an entirely new logistics area, which doubles shipping capacity. Our staging department, which by now is running on 24h operation, also received new space.

The next step, which is important for you, is to extend our customer support. Not only will customer support receive 600 square meters of brand new space mid next year (we are still waiting for building approval) we are strongly investing here in service quality. With this we do not only mean the preparation of demo devices and the processing of RMAs, but also concrete support for you during the implementation of your solutions on our hardware no matter if it is Windows or Android. This means a lot of internal schooling sessions are necessary, and also a high specialization of our employees. Even our service app and the RMA software will be further enhanced.

We wish to emphasize that »Value Add« is not just a bullet point in a PowerPoint presentation, but is truly lived and practiced on a daily basis. If you wish to gain further insight into Jarltech, I suggest viewing the videos on our website. There is also a »Jarltech book« about our history and our services one call is all it takes!

That just leaves the hope that there is no sudden onset of winter hailing upon logistics this year as well and that everything runs smoothly!

17/10/2016

From China by train

Until now, we received our goods from China by ship, or sometimes, if we were in a hurry or could just not wait, by plane....

Until now, we received our goods from China by ship, or sometimes, if we were in a hurry or could just not wait, by plane. Now, we are testing the railway connection for the first time. The Christmas presents for our top customers will not be ready in time therefore, shipping by sea would take too long. It's not that air freight is too expensive for our best customers, but the train is just right in this case.

There has been a railway connection for a long time already, but a reliable two-week service even if you don't have a full 40-ft container, that's new. And now that I have told that air freight is not quite worth it and that the gifts are not big enough to fill a container, we could save ourselves the trouble with the Christmas presents. I'm sorry :)

The container will be loaded in beautiful Suzhou, which is not far from Shanghai. To us Europeans, however, it is far but I would like to fly there in November because we are going to participate in the "POS China" trade fair. Unfortunately, Suzhou is the only megacity in China that does not really have an airport. Never mind, China has the best high-speed railway network in the world. Of course, only if you are at the national airport in Shanghai and not from possible destinations when departing from Frankfurt. But I don't want to complain too much.

There is one handy thing though: exactly in this city, Honeywell has its scanner plant, and Elo also has inaugurated a state-of-the-art plant there just last month.

The train's next important stop is Aktogay (which I never heard of) in Kazakhstan. It then continues through Russia Osinki and Moscow. Previously to its transit through Belarus, the container must be loaded onto another train, because of the changing track width. It then continues to reach its last train stop in Malaszewice, Poland. That is to say, the last stop for our presents, as goods destined to Frankfurt are unloaded there and continue their way by truck. The train's final destination is either Duisburg or Hamburg.

The whole trip takes only 14 days, if nothing freezes on the way. My last train ride in Russia was 25 years ago, and yes: I was frozen. On the other hand, ships are becoming ever slower since they seem to be using wind and currents instead of their motors because of the strongly dropping freight prices. Shipping by train is twice as expensive as by ship, but only costs a third of the air shipping.

Even from Wuhan, Changsha and Shenyang, there are railway connections to Germany now. I'm impressed, and we will accordingly buy bigger gifts next year, as well as earlier. And, indeed, when I look at the Christmas stollen that are available in supermarkets again, I must admit, we are a bit late :)

06/10/2016

Our new catalogue and the beauty business

We are proud of our new main catalogue, which you should receive any day now....

We are proud of our new main catalogue, which you should receive any day now. Why, because of the fact that our marketing department entirely produced the 400-page tool - whether it is the product photos, drone photos from the premises, ten thousand texts and, of course, the cover.

As an eye-catcher we look for a new model for each new issue, and take photos. That sounds like pleasure, but it's really hard work. Since our "mascot" is also always seen at Jarltech events over the course of one year, is shown at the exhibition stands in China and, of course, on our website, we also need a model that not only looks good, but also fits Jarltech.

This year we are pleased that we were able to win Laura Franziska for our cover, known from the current season of "Germany's Next Top Model. We have never experienced such a professional model before; instead of working for hours on a single take, everything was an immediate success. Whether it was photos with data capture devices or with me in a Santa Claus suit: the smile is always present.

And believe me, this is not a given. It starts with the "casting", where you sometimes really feel like someone is pulling your leg, if - as known from the TV series - girls appear without a portfolio, show up hours too late, or during the test pictures would rather phone with their new love.

Or you choose someone from an agency database and then the person shows up with their whole family. Oh, and then the lady tells us that she will be 14 in just a few weeks. Of course, such a person would not be suitable at a Jarltech event tapping the keg with me, and giving a speech to our partners. However, as a result of this, I am aware of the fact that very talented make-up artists can dramatically change peoples age, and that one should ask beforehand.

The shooting itself, with our photographers and filmmakers, a make-up artist and various helpers, is rather hectic. And sometimes a picture is planned in the sun, but it is raining dogs and cats. Or my son, wearing a Jarltech football jersey, just does not want to smile when he sits next to Laura Franziska, only next to his mom. :)

Many thanks to Laura and the team for the great results! Quite a few pictures made it into the catalogue, or will be appearing soon. Your personal contact at Jarltech will gladly send you the catalogue if you have not already received it. And there is also a great "Making of" video that you can find on our website or on our YouTube channel. Have fun with it!