The Competitive Edge
About The Competitive Edge
The Competitive Edge is AIM North America’s monthly, quick-read e-newsletter. Our purpose, as the title suggests, is to help you maintain your competitive edge and grow your business by putting you in touch with key information. Inside you’ll find highlights on current reseller, integrator, distributor, or manufacturer issues and market trends (a feature titled Headline AIM), along with member-specific news and information. As good as The Competitive Edge is, we’re open to new ways of making it even better, so your comments and suggestions are welcomed.
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Not a member? Missing Out On the Best This Newsletter Has to Offer?
In a crowded market, growth doesn’t just happen. It takes knowledge and connections for your business to reach its full potential. You’ll find both at AIM North America (NA), the premier source of industry support for the AIDC market.
From sales leads to market trends to discounts on training, products, and services, membership in AIM NA delivers access to growth opportunities you won’t find anywhere else.
What’s more, AIM NA offers membership levels tailored to you. So whether your business is large or small, there’s room to grow with AIM NA.
AIM North America – Be in the know.
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New Members
RFID Revolution, LLC
Join Date: 1/24/2008
RFID Revolution provides global RFID education and market strategy consulting services. Our groundbreaking RFID Essentials e-learning tools offer compelling, cost-effective learning experiences. . . Learn more.
IIMAK
Join Date: 1/24/2008
IIMAK products can be found in various markets including auto identification, glass decoration, office products, brand protection, outdoor signage and digital photography. Learn more.
For a complete list of AIM North America Members, visit www.aim-na.org/memberlist.php or to join, visit www.aim-na.org/membership.php.
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Headline AIM—The Millennials: Attracting & Recruiting Generation Next
by Shel Myeroff, President, Direct Recruiters, Inc.
Part 2 of a 3 Part Series
In the first article of this three-part series regarding the Millennial Generation, I encouraged our audience of resellers, systems integrators, manufacturers, and distributors to prepare for the invasion of nearly 80 million new age thinkers and the inevitable changes they will bring to the workplace. These highly skilled and tech-savvy professionals are slated to replace the Baby Boomers as our next managers, executives, and leaders. That makes them indispensable. That’s not hyperbole but reality!
AIM NA Members: Login to learn how you can take advantage of this unique opportunity.
Direct Recruiters, Inc., Human Capital Resource Specialists since 1983, focuses on Supply Chain, AIDC, RFID, and Mobile Enterprise. Top industry companies rely on DRI to help build solid teams in Sales, Sales Management, Marketing, Engineering, and Technical Support. For more information, contact Shel Myeroff, President, 31300 Solon Road, Ste #4, Solon, Ohio 44139, 440-248-3370 x103, e-mail: shel@directrecruiters.com, and www.directrecruiters.com.
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Channel Bytes—Using Video to Increase Your Online Presence
By Michelle Kabele, Zebra Technologies
When part of a Web-based campaign, video is a highly effective tool you can use for marketing. Leveraging video content, you can embed ads and messages on your Web site to ensure visitors remain longer and learn more about your products and services. Or you can utilize videos as part of a “viral” advertising campaign to drive more potential traffic to your site. Use this Quick Guide to jump start your video marketing efforts.
AIM NA Members: Login to learn how you can take advantage of this unique opportunity.
Michelle Kabele leads the teams responsible for managing Zebra Technologies’ innovative and highly successful channel marketing and product marketing strategies. She currently serves on the AIM NA board of directors and membership committee, and has an MBA from the J.L. Kellogg Graduate School of Management (Evanston, Ill.) and an undergraduate degree from Northwestern University (Evanston, Ill.). For further information, Michelle can be reached at Mkabele@zebra.com.
The tools and products listed in this article are for reference purposes only and should be not taken as an endorsement.
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The following is reprinted from Vertical Systems Reseller’s 1st Annual Review and Outlook (January 2008). AIM North America’s own Tee Migliori provided his thoughts on the market. To review the complete supplement, visit the Vertical Systems Reseller website.
AIDC Industry Changes Will Be Subtle, Not Seismic
By Tee Migliori, Chairman, AIM North America
2008 will not be a year of big change in the automatic identification and data collection (AIDC) industry, which itself is a change for an industry accustomed to fast-developing technology and hot market opportunities that can disappear within a year or two of their emergence. This isn’t to say the industry won’t change in 2008, but it will be evolutionary rather than revolutionary. Two leading market segments – mobility and RFID – illustrate this point.
Increased mobility has been occurring so long and so consistently in AIDC that it isn’t a trend in the industry, it defines the industry. Wide-area wireless data access will drive mobility adoption. Durable handheld computers certified for data and voice communication now give businesses an alternative to smart phones for dispatch, sales order entry, service and other enterprise applications, and affordable broadband access provides a compelling business case to adopt. As a result, the trend of increased adoption by small and midsized businesses (SMBs) will continue.
RFID benefits are also within reach of many organizations – if they look outside the supply chain. Asset management and other closed-loop applications are among the fastest-growing segments of the market. Such solutions often piggyback onto legacy 802.11 wireless LAN infrastructures and provide rapid ROI. This approach is not new, but is attracting renewed attention as understanding of the business value grows.
It can be dangerous to predict that a technology industry won’t undergo big changes in a year. Emerging bar code technologies including GS1 DataBar™, Dot Code and Ultracode could make an impact on the market. New compliance requirements could be announced any time. At the very least, the industry will have new public faces next year following the ownership and senior management changes that occurred at several high-profile AIDC companies in 2007. The AIDC industry will continue to embrace change in 2008, but won’t be defined by it. new, but is attracting renewed attention as understanding of the business value grows.
Tee Migliori is chairman of AIM North America, the trade association for the automatic identification and mobility industry and president of ADC Technologies. For more information visit www.aim-na.org.
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AIM Takes Case for UID Adoption to Capitol Hill
Getting the DoD to enforce its Unique Identification (UID) program requirements and to promote adoption has been an uphill effort. Now it shifts to Capitol Hill.
UID has proven it's ability to improve military readiness and reduce maintenance and inventory costs. AIM North America's UID Supplier Alliance (USA) Committee is headed to Washington, DC to brief legislators on the UID program's benefits and to encourage UID use. Briefings are being pursued for nine congressmen, including six senators. Since legislators control budgets, they could encourage the DoD to step up UID adoption because the program provides proven costs savings for taxpayers while improving the military's efficiency and readiness.
The UID program requires DoD goods to be marked with a unique identifier encoded in a Data Matrix 2-D bar code and recorded electronically in the UID Registry, which now includes approximately 2.6 million items. The program applies to an estimated 80 to 85 percent of all DoD assets, including those in service before the first UID marking requirements were issued in summer, 2003.
The UID program requirements are still in place, but enforcement is inconsistent and waning. Many military contracting officers and operations personnel are currently prioritizing other initiatives ahead of UID. For these and other reasons, UID adoption has not progressed as expected or originally planned. Currently about 1,000 contractors are registered with the UID program (including 50 percent classified as small businesses), but the potential market is much larger.
The USA Committee currently has representatives from 13 AIM North America and AIM Global member companies (see listing below). Committee members contribute financial resources fund activities, which include developing marketing material to educate military personnel, legislators and contractors about the benefits of UID, and hiring Lt. Col. (Ret.) Greg Redick as a consultant. Redick retired from the military after leading development of the UID program and he remains one of its biggest proponents. He provides AIM and the USA Committee tremendous insight into adoption challenges and opportunities.
Besides the lobbying effort, the USA Committee holds frequent teleconferences to plan educational and promotional activities. Several members will represent AIM at the upcoming UID Forum events (www.uidforum.com), which are conferences that promote UID to users and contractors.
The committee also does outreach to DoD contractors, who are unlikely to voluntarily apply UID marks. Like bar code shipment labeling before it, many contractors originally viewed UID marking as a mandate and an expense before learning how to take advantage of the traceability it provides. Some DoD contractors are successfully using UID bar codes to improve their own production, service and inventory operations. For the military, there have been a limited number of instances where UID has been documented to improve readiness and performance of weapons systems, eliminate the need for thousands of hours of manual data entry, prevent errors, streamline maintenance and optimize inventories. The USA Committee is taking this message to Washington and to DoD personnel and contractors around the country.
AIM UID Supplier Alliance Committee Members
A2B Tracking Solutions
Evanhoe & Associates, Inc.
Horizons Incorporated
ID Integration, Inc
INFOSIGHT Corporation
Lockheed Martin
Lowry Computer Products
MetalCraft, Inc.
Monode Pryor Traceability
Seagull Scientific
SIEMENS
The Danby Group
The Clarion Group
UID Journal
Webscan
Contact AIM North America at info@aim-na.org or +1 724.934.5688 for more information about the USA Committee and its activities.
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R.W. Baird Quarterly Barcode Survey Summary Revealed
Robert W. Baird & Company, in conjunction with AIM North America, conducted a survey of AIDC resellers at the end of December. To review the executive summary along with the report details, members can login.
If you would like to gain access to the complete quarterly survey data, you can arrange to participate in future surveys by contacting Reik Read at rread@rwbaird.com.
Recent AIM RFP Postings
- We are looking for a Web-based system for a new project we are working on for inventory and assets. We send daily reports to our customers. We are putting together a proposal at this time and need a quote and some samples of what is available.
- We are looking to integrate a bar code tracking system to inventory items being moved during office relocations. We do tens of thousands of relocations each year, moving hundreds of thousands of items.
- We are looking for a total hardware/software solution to allow us a way to inventory office contents before and after an office relocation. We do tens of thousands of moves every year.
- I am looking for a technology that can track vehicles (GPS) and associated software that I can resell and offer a web view the tracked auto.
- We are interested in the technology and capability as described in NineSigma Request, RFP# 30502-09, "Low-cost, High-temperature Data Tracking Device for Fuser Rolls." We are looking for a party with a potential to respond to, or act as a contact who might know of someone with expertise in, technology to record on a fuser roll various data that describes the roll over its life cycle.
- We need to detect the presence of one person using a RFTag (or similar) and send that information to control center, and when the person is out of detection range, the control center should be informed.
For complete details and how to respond to these and other recent RFPs, members can login .
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Members in the News
Accu-Time Systems, Inc. Announces European Expansion With Its Newly Opened Netherlands Office Learn more.
UID Market Promising, But Filled with Questions , ID Integration, SCAN: The Data Capture Report, , January 25, 2008 Learn more.
Direct Recruiters, Inc. Celebrates 25 Years.. Learn more.
Tracient Technologies and Academia RFID Offer RFID Training and Certification In New Zealand,. Learn more.
Jeff Yelton Named President of Scansource POS and Barcoding Unit,. Learn more.
Intermec, Inc. Names Raymond Cronin as Vice President and General Manager, RFID,. Learn more.
Have a news item you’d like to share? Submit your news release to AIM NA and we’ll feature it on the AIM NA website as well as in a future issue of The Competitive Edge.
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Advance registration is now available
Whether you’re a manufacturer, reseller, integrator, software developer, or distributor, the AIM Technology Leadership Summit is the one industry event you won’t want to miss.
This one-day executive-level meeting is filled with educational content from all facets of the automatic identification marketplace and exclusive executive networking. The main conference day is surrounded before and after with networking events and association activities that provide additional value for your attendance dollar.
For complete details, visit www.aimglobal.org/events/TLS08/index.htm.
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Industry Events
Submit your events to AIM NA. Include your contact information, event name, dates, location, and website.
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THE FINE PRINT
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