In our latest Rapid Interview, we speak to Marcin Pilarz, CEO and founder of Talkin’ Things, about innovations and opportunities for scaling RFID technology.
Your elevator pitch: introduce and sell us your company in no more than 280 characters.
We are an innovator and technology leader in RFID products. We design, manufacture and convert high-performance RFID and NFC tags and deliver them to clients on 6 continents. With a capacity of .5B tags/y we are the largest producer in the region, and will double it by 2023.
Where are your company’s locations? Are there any specific challenges or advantages relating to your geographical location that you could tell us about?
We are operating in the EU, in Poland. Our manufacturing facility is in Warsaw with convenient access to uninterrupted logistics and the R&D department in Rzeszow - just next to the technology university with one of the best RF departments in the world.
Tell us a surprising fact about the market you work in.
The first practical application of the principle that stands behind RFID is dated as far back as 1945. The RFID term was first used almost 40 years ago. But the true large scale applications era has begun just recently. And there is still plenty of room for innovations too.
At Packaging Europe we like to watch trends and areas of innovation as they evolve. Can you tell us something we might not be aware of that is driving technology in your sphere?
Sustainability is on a rise. But for us it is more a necessity and our obligation. Our products are also tools for another trend - the internet of everything. Combining those two is what we are focused on. Soon we will present an interesting innovation in this area - stay tuned!
What would you say is the biggest common misconception that you encounter in your business?
RFID is still perceived by some as an expensive technology, but it’s no longer true. The unit price of a tag is now affordable even for medium and low margin goods. And when you look at the potential ROI the question should be “why haven’t we implemented RFID yet?”
If the wider packaging industry could be transformed in some way, what kind of change would you like to see?
We would be happy to see more brands making good use of the digital consumer-to-product interaction with HF RFID a.k.a. NFC. All the necessary tools and technology are here, ideas too. We believe that after the first daring and smart big brand the others will follow very quickly.
…and how do you envisage your company changing the industry in the coming years?
We have already introduced some innovations that have changed the market (like 3 cent tags) or solved previously unsolvable tasks. We will keep innovating and scaling-up production capacity at the same time. We dream of making RFID available for every product. And we will do it.
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