¶ Intro / Opening
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¶ Intro and Podcast Updates
This week, we've got an interesting guest, Thomas Roding, who's the CEO and founder of Naravaro. So Naravaro, name seems to be derived from... a story that is true, and they can be described as a digital product passport, as a service company. And Thomas is keen to clarify that even though he has two important roles with respect to DPPs, one as CEO of Narivero and one as vice chair.
of the Joint Technical Committee, UTC24. He was coming to us primarily in his capacity as CEO. And of course, we had a previous interview with his colleague. Thomas Notte, who is the chair of JDC24. And that was an exclusive interview. Very interesting. By all means, check that out. But I think this...
particular session this week is interesting because you get to hear from someone who's actually implementing systems that will work with that standard. And I think it's going to be a very important standard. So all of that to come. Before we go on to that, I've got a handful of things to cover, actually quite a lot. So one thing to say is I'm a little jet lagged. I just got back from Amsterdam.
I went over to participate in the AIPIA Congress, which is the Active Intelligent Packaging Industry Association. It's a wonderful group. is the living force and driver of that. He collaborates with Alexander Watson Associates to... to organize the show. And it was the very first show that I went to when we were starting up Williot. And I still think it's the most... on point for people that are interested in integrating smart technology into packaging.
So it was quite a show. We had a number of brands there, including McCormick, who had the leading flavor purveyor in the world. A huge brand, both in terms of their direct products, the herbs and spices we all buy when we go to the supermarket. But they also have flavor solutions, which is basically the flavoring that goes into CPG products. PepsiCo is one of their biggest customers and also the QSR quick service restaurant channels. They all use their products. So really fascinating.
They talked about their business and there was also a pitch competition with 12 vendors all competing to... get recognition as voted by four folks from McCormick. And I was really delighted that Amb.ai... was chosen as one of those winners. So thank you very much to everyone that voted for us. The other winners included some great companies, ScanTrust.
which is a software platform for anti-counterfeiting and product traceability. And Experience is Everything, which is a really creative, connected packaging design agency. So we got this enormous trophy, which I had to check my bags because... For those of you that are not watching, this is a massive piece of glass with a very pointy end. But, you know, when you're starting a company, there's all sorts of ups and downs. And this is definitely an up, which was...
which was much appreciated. We also had a great panel alongside. Thomas was actually on a digital product passport panel. It was sponsored and chaired by Identive. We had... Mike from the NFC Forum, Vanu Guttlapali, who's the CEO of Tag & Track. Vanu actually was... part of Williot's early history. So it was wonderful to see him. And we also had a gentleman from ST Microelectronics who have been on the podcast talking about their RFID business.
And I think Maywell were talking about having them back to talk about the Bluetooth side of their business. The other thing of note, well, actually, there were many things of note, but... The last thing I'll talk about in terms of the conference was an amazing presentation from GS1, from their chief product officer, Robert Biderman, who I really want to get on the show.
talking about a number of things, including the integration of AI with the data carriers and other standards that GS1 is responsible for. That was the main thing that was going on in Amsterdam as far as I was concerned, apart from the fact that I literally stumbled across a massive... forest called the Amsterdam's boss which
is a huge park that's been created out of nothing, risen up from the sea many years ago. And it's three times the size of Central Park. And I've been going to Amsterdam for years and years.
misbehaving enjoying the feud the culture but didn't know there was this huge park forest full of locals and it sits between the airport and the central area of amsterdam so if you ever go to amsterdam check out amsterdam's boss or the the amsterdam forest So other things, there is a video that's just gone up on our YouTube channel, which is a recording of a presentation that I gave at TechBlick.
Earlier this month, it's called AI Winter is Coming, and it's an attempt to shine a light on some of the challenges that are going to happen when AI agents start to... vacuum up all of the product data that's going to start to get exposed with these digital product passports and get incredibly intimate information from us. We're already entrusting these.
chatbots and agents with things that we wouldn't tell anyone else. And so as I look at it, I see these AI agents integrating payments and commerce transactions very soon. They're going to be selling us stuff. And so then what happens to the brands? What happens to the retailers? So check out on our YouTube channel and on the podcast.ambai.ai site.
that presentation if you want to hear more about it. A couple of other things before we move on to the interview with Thomas. Basically, Amb.ai has got a couple of things of note. One is we've just posted... A set of results from a survey that was conducted in partnership with YouGov, the famous polling organization of a thousand consumers.
in the UK and the US. And the questions we were asking them were all about use-buy, best-buy, food expiry dates. There's a white paper, there's a full data set of the answers. I thought the conclusions were fascinating. It's really interesting to see the difference between the British and the American consumers. But the overall trends were very significant. On one hand...
Most people don't believe that the expiry dates are accurate. They kind of know that they're a guess and an estimate and they're static. But lots of people, 93% of people, they... believe that produce is very often still good past that expiry date. And yet 81% consume the food beyond the expiry date. But almost everyone, 80%, have major concerns about the environmental consequence of food that's perfectly good being thrown away.
And the reason why we conducted the survey is we believe that ambient IoT is the way to go in terms of... continuous tracking of temperature, which can give us really accurate expiry dates so that we waste less food, the cost of food comes down, the food's safer, it tastes better. And it seems like 70% of people agree that temperature tracking would help. And two thirds of people think it should be required. So there's a lot more in the survey. It's pretty interesting.
results are all available, the detailed data, a white paper. So check that out. I think I'm going to wrap it up here. I've talked long enough, but do listen to this interview with Thomas Roding, CEO. founder of Naravero. They're an amazing company. They've been going for over 10 years and really taking the lead in many respects in terms of... digital product passport as a service delivery. Check it out.
The Mr. Beacon Ambient IoT podcast is sponsored by Identive, whose IoT solutions create digital identities for physical objects, enhancing global connectivity for business, people, and the planet. And by Leacon, who enables physical products. We connect people and products with a digital system using AI and ambient IoT.
¶ Introducing Narravero and DPPs
So, Thomas, thanks so much for joining us. Welcome to the podcast. Thank you. It's a great pleasure. Thank you for the invitation. I'm happy to be here today. Well, I am really delighted. I'm always delighted when our guests join, but you in particular. are right at the center of something that's completely preoccupied me. I would consider you one of the world's greatest experts on digital product passports. And we had a brief conversation before this about what we...
we're not going to talk about. And you kind of have a dual role. You work as part of the leadership of JTC24, the standards group. We've already had your colleague on the show to talk about the standards. So what I want to talk to you about is really two things.
company naraviro and you can correct my pronunciation i'd like to take this time just to explore the subject of digital product passports because i think they're incredibly interesting incredibly important so it's great to have you on the show maybe you can start off just introducing us to your company. Thank you. So just for the co-chair role, that's what you mentioned. And so now talking from an entrepreneur's perspective, Narabeo is...
a DPP service provider. We are running a platform to do operations of digital product passports, and we help with services around it, advisory service in the initial phase, as well as... production support for real integration of production workflows of large-volume applications of DPPs as well. And your company's been around for a while, given that... DPP's flavor of the month, you've been doing this for 12 years. How has your vision for the company evolved over the 12 years?
Well, let's say where we started is the question of provenance and traceability. That's where we come from and we started operating systems that make it as easy as possible, even in complex supply chains, to enable... small companies, even the smallest ones in the not so developed areas.
to record data on a supply chain information just with a smartphone. That's what we did for a couple of years and extended that for food supply chains. So basically everything that is what we now would call an upstream tasteability. is the topic we come from. And we added a few things like authenticity on product level as well as on material level.
But in the end, we collected all the information to a certain point that basically ended at packaging printing with QR code per package that opens up a part of this traceability history. That's what we do for a couple of years. And then the DPP came up a few years ago. Okay. So... You're at a dinner party. Someone asks what you do. How do you explain to them what a digital product passport is? Well, what we do in the very first place is to say we let your product talk.
explaining it in a way saying, hey, imagine every physical product has a very easy to use interface to be expanded in digital weight, then that enables your product. to talk, to talk about its provenance, to talk how to maintain it, to use it, to repair it, to maybe resell it. And so that's what we actually do. We... extend products to be on one side now that we have a regulation coming up to be compliant with these regulations where hawking is very limited on government expectations.
But let's say from a passionate point of view, opening up the other parts, whatever a product also can tell you, saving you of printed manuals, giving you the right video clip, giving you appropriate support tips, everything you can picture what could be relevant is actually... the beauty of the concept of digital product passports, giving you the right information at the right moment, exactly easy to access whenever you need. And of course...
This is something that in Europe is being, the adoption is being driven by the standards. You're working on the standards, but also by regulation that's going to... require the use of these, including for products that come from outside the EU. So I think this is presumably relevant to product manufacturers that are in other countries.
¶ EU Regulation Drives DPP Adoption
correct? Absolutely. I think that, to be understood well, the European Union had the intention driven by circularity and sustainability. So driven by the expectation the EU wants to be the world champion in circularity, a circular economy, by the end of this decade. And in order to get there, the regulation is basically saying that product should have a, let's say, digital live file attached to it. I would rather call it a live file than a passport.
However, it's the digital reporter passport containing that information regardless. If you manufacture within Europe or if you import a product to Europe in both ways, that should be the next step to go in a digital transformation. So what are the things that have to be in a digital product passport? And what are the things that are more optional, discretionary?
So what has to be in the passport is specific to certain product groups. So there are maybe a couple of basic shared properties that go across all kinds of passports. The major requirement definition is very much depending on which product group you have in mind. If you think about the t-shirt, it's well different to a bicycle or a car. you think about furniture or if you think about just a bottle of cleaner it
very much depends on the product group what is required. But let's say the EU has defined roughly 16 categories of sustainability information so that somehow contributes to traceability and circularity that are the potentially... categories and it is now in the phase of defining for the most relevant product groups step by step. the exact requirements, starting, for instance, with batteries and then going to fashion and furniture and some other components and materials as well.
Okay, so it varies, but what's the core that's in every digital product passport? And maybe you can then pick on a few examples and talk about the differences there.
Well, let's say one of the common questions that is coming up is the border carbon footprint to give transparency on circularity-driven approaches, thinking about which is the better choice, or let's say in the terminology of the EU, saying... making better reform choices, giving transparency on such environmental parameters, and technically is everything that is related to
regaining materials and components, thinking about batteries, if you dismantle them, how to regain access to valuable components and materials. So those kinds of questions are for chemicals, if you think about batteries, or let's say if you think about fashion, what kind of fabric is it? Is it a natural fabric? Is it just cotton or is it a mixed fabric so that
Recycling this material gets a better knowledge of how to recycle it. And so that's the core categories that are helping to foster a circular economy.
¶ Addressing Adoption Challenges
Right. So there's kind of a carrot and the stick in terms of the adoption of this. You have to do it. And I'm always surprised how... ineffective you have to do, it seems to be. And we have a regulation over here called FSMA 204, the Food Safety Modernization Act, and it's requiring, you know, and it's, you know, our driver for...
some kind of traceability information for food. But people are like, I'm busy. They're not going to come after me. So I don't know how much you're seeing that denial avoidance head in the sand. thing in in europe is it there or or do all the companies get it that they've got to do it if they're in the battery business or the toy business or the clothing business
Yeah, I mean, I wouldn't say everybody says, yeah, and now I have to do something more without seeing immediately what's my benefit with it. So I think that there is not a big difference between an American company or a European company. But let's say there is a difference. regarding the bar groups. Let's say recycling of a chocolate bar, repairing of a chocolate bar, it doesn't really make any sense. Thinking about
repairing a bicycle and recycling the tires and recycling the metal makes a lot of sense. So let's say, from a society point of view, Regaining access to material and components and supporting everything on the lifeline of repairing and all these questions made a lot of sense that these are long-living products that could be actually prolonged if there is proper taking.
proper care taken care of, but consumable products that consume food, there is no, let's say, added value in terms of recycling or something. Yeah, I guess part of the theory behind digital product passports is if you give people the information, then they'll change their behavior. And I'm an idealist, so I believe that if people can see this carbon footprint is lower than that one, then that will at least...
factor in their decisions. But I know some people who have completely opposite view and they say people don't care, they don't have the time. The idea of actually going to a website to find out about this information is ridiculous. I assume you're on one hand an evangelist, but you're also a pragmatist because as an entrepreneur, you have... Your life's full of people saying, no, I'm not interested. I don't want to do this thing that you're selling me. Where are you on this spectrum of idealism?
cynicism that I just outlined. To me, I think the key is to understand how to fusion the concept of ecological sustainability and economical sustainability. So let's say, let me change to a hardliner's point of view, as you just mentioned, that we would like here to look up on a web page. Like, oh yeah, I kind of like, let's say, I do understand. I don't really know that many people.
who are, let's say, downloading a sustainability report from their supplier's website just because they always wanted to read it sitting on the weekend on the couch. I don't really know anyone, to be honest. But let's take it step by step. B2G communication of a company. registering products, providing documentation, getting it, let's say, ready for the market, everything that's marketed to buy in Scalavan, is about to be shifted from paper to digital processes based on the DPP.
has just been published a few weeks ago, as the current Omnibus 4 draft, where paper is disappearing and being replaced with digital processes. So from a hardliner's business point of view, this is already streamlining processes and has a strong impact on cost saving. So if I can't handle all the different...
let's say, government-related processes digitally instead of paper-based, there's a huge impact on it. Thinking about B2B, let's say I have to report a product carbon footprint as a manufacturer. That usually means to me... I get a couple of data points regarding carbon footprint. Then I add my old ones, do a math calculation, and produce my output information. What is my protocol on footprint?
So if the incoming product card and footprint information is provided by digital product passports on materials and components, that could replace my handling to be entirely automated in a digital system instead of trying to collect numbers the hard way from suppliers so thinking of a DPP not only as something I have to report to authorities, but thinking as a digital product intelligence container that I get on the purchasing side.
gives me another opportunity in my B2B relations to streamline a lot of processes. And my favorite part, of course, in the end, is always the business to customer perspective. So whatever I do, regardless of Hope user or business user, whatever else I am allowed to use as voluntary information to make it easier to read manuals, to find the right spare parts, to...
We pay and take proper care, get consumables, and there's a long list of opportunities. Registering a product, giving you loyalty points, whatever. Everything that I can think on that part gives a lot of extra value. Yeah. Well, very good. I'd like to come back to the ROI question because I think it is sort of very, very important. And my guess is you've had a lot of discussions on this front.
¶ Narravero's Work and Offerings
Can we spend a bit more time on your company and tell us a bit more about how many customers, what kind of customers, what are you doing for them? Sure, I'm happy to give you an overview. Currently, we are serving about 200 different customers in 12 different industries. We have a peak load of about 180 million operations in a month. And that means that we have a lot of different scenarios we have seen.
We are coming out of that food supply chain. So we know the part of like that is much more traceability than passports. So I would rather focus on the more exciting and let's say more recent cases. The very first one was a fashion case, a premium design brand for leather shoes from Italy, who said, I was always dreaming of having something like a product passport in order to bridge. from the brand's perspective to the consumer's perspective, for multiple reasons, providing
transparency on materials, handcrafted, environmentally responsible, and all the attributes. This brand is called Stefano Beamer from Florence. They were focused on, let's give a lot of transparency on it. and also, of course, have a business-driven approach. If you need a proper cleaning kit, we are more than happy to make that easily accessible through the passport to maintain the shoes around for the next 10 weeks. So...
That is where customers started, and that was what we call it from the perspective of beauty to beauty, being compliant or compliance ready on one side, but the beauty of customer experience on the other side. pattern has repeated no multiple times just recently a medium-sized cosmetics company came up with the
Turning around that phrase and saying, we want to move from the beauty to the beauty, which is kind of a double meaning in a cosmetic company. So they added to their cosmetic products a passport on the bottles. They get a lot of information on handling, usage, sourcing, whatever is customer relevant, and they are happy that they know they can add the compliance requirements whenever they are required to do so.
Let's say the regulation has been published. It's just adding more information, but they started already this year to open up this interface to their customers on their product. I'm sensing you're very much a one-stop shop. for this area that we're describing. What are the boundaries of what you do and what you don't do within the company? Do you do consulting as part of your offering?
I mean, I feel like you're consulting with me and the audience here, so we're grateful for that. But part of what you must end up doing is education. Is it a cost of sale or is it part of your offering? It's part of our offering because initially we thought we were ready to run a product, be happy with it, and that was just not realistic. A lot of companies we met were confused.
getting a lot of contradictory information where people more or less copy some public presentations and right now turning a story somehow around the digital product export with a lot of different interpretations. So we ended up helping them, for instance, lots of companies have a mixed product group portfolio. So let's take an example from a European perspective. If you want to play soccer, you need a ball, a shirt.
and a gold. Well, the shirt is textiles, fashion. The gold is usually made out of alloy or aluminum and so on. that is more maybe it's a toy i don't know is it a toy or is it equipment for sports and then there was the ball that has probably rubber and leather which causes in Europe a lot of other questions like, where does the rubber come from? Where does the leather come from? And is that deforestation relevant?
Advisory on our end means we do not know everything. We are happy and having a network of about 50 companies we cooperate with. who might be experts for EUDR deforestation or might be expert for lifecycle assessment, which we are not. The coin is orchestrating the data flow that's necessary to
produce digital product passports, to read digital product passports and to operate them over their lifetime. That's our focus and I think advisory is very important for instance with these three different products. Usually, companies are asking, what data points do I need for each of them? And there are different categories. That's why we help with understanding the regulations and setting up the right data flows. I mean, how much are people needing a management consultant? Because...
On one hand, I can see people looking at a DPP as it's another tool. I have a CRM. I have a supply chain management system. My business is not being changed by... my accounting system. But a DPP seems like it can fundamentally change your business. It can change your business model. It can change... your entire go-to-market supply chain, the relationship with your customer, your revenue. So I don't know whether people, your customers see it that way, but this is sort of like a board level.
CEO-level discussion versus VP of supply chain, director of IT type thing. It's a big challenging point, honestly. Companies do have issues figuring that out on a C-level question because, let's say, it comes from calling it the eco-design for sustainable product regulation, calls up the corporate responsibility department. And they are looking at it and thinking, oh, this is just one, let's say, this is one more regulation we have to fulfill to be compliant. But really, the...
Potential is understanding the new interface to the customer and thinking about a channel and talking to a customer is usually a marketing and sales question. And usually, the CR department and the marketing department only talk when they think about communicating the sustainability report. But they do not talk about how to nurture customer relations.
so it's in shift happening now that there's a let's say across organization team out of different departments, R&D, packaging, responsibility, sustainability. leading department, marketing and sales, getting them onto the same table to understand this is something that helps connect a lot of different ends. That's a shift happening. Some of them are fast adapting to it, some others are good.
probably think I've not necessarily seen it in a year. On WhatsApp, no one can see or hear your personal messages, whether it's a voice call, message or sending a password. To WhatsApp, it's all just this. So whether you're trading those late night voice calls that could basically become a podcast or sharing the streaming password to the family chat, your personal messages stay between you.
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¶ DPP as Business Transformation
And if you had to characterize where people are, on one hand, this is an IT system. I'm going to put it next to the accounting system that I have to maintain. It's a hygiene factor. an existential factor in the existence of this company in a landscape that's going to be totally disrupted by AI. And the only way we survive is by controlling the way the AI agent interfaces with our product. So if you had to kind of draw a curve, would you say most people are at the accounting end?
I imagine most of them are not at the existential end of that continuum. Well, to be honest, it's funny. We have a few very earlier doctors who try to find the right bridge between the AI basis word on one side. and their digital product passport questions on the other side. And so the outcome is they create a DPP integration for an AI agent that knows the product.
So let's say it's not necessarily like, is it either one or the other one? It's much more their understanding. That's probably both sides. Compliance, technically speaking, is probably much closer to the accounting system. But customer relations, if you want to find the right spare part and the proper service partner in your area without thinking a lot and knowing if you're a student warranty or not,
An integrated chatbot that knows the product, this specific unique product, your product, and when you bought it and where you are and where you are as the next service partner could be giving you the proper answer in a second. Yeah. And so the question is, is it going to be your chatbot, Mr. CEO of a brand, or is it going to be... the chatbot being driven by these multi-billion dollar frontier LLM companies. And I have to say, I'm putting my money on the latter. And what I would say is...
You know, we have gone through a lot of disruption as a product and retail ecosystem from Omnichannel, which is, and what was the disruptor there? It was, I can go to a webpage and I can buy something. But what happens when there is no web page, when I'm just talking to this personal assistant that knows me really intimately?
My relationship is no longer with the retailer. In many ways, it's no longer with the brand. It's with the LLM. And so I don't know how many of the brands you speak to are worrying about this. but to me, my perspective is the only thing they have really, the two things they have is the relationship with the customer, which I think is extremely tenuous in this scenario. And the other one is knowledge of the physical world. And that then becomes their gate.
stop these billion-dollar behemoths, completely commoditizing them, destroying all of the customer loyalty. I guess there isn't really a question there, but I am interested in your response to that. Well, And probably in some points, to be honest, it's exceeding, let's say, my expert area. I'm not an AI expert on the visionary part of it. But what I think is, it's probably more than one answer. So it depends a bit on...
If you think about a complex machinery thing, and you want an AI system to understand how to repair this complex machinery, It's probably different than if you, let's say, talk to your shoes, how do I get the proper taking care kit or how do I repair my bicycle? So what I'm trying to say is there are more than one use case if you think about them.
giant spectrum of physical products from, let's say, discount plain simple products to high complexity, high value engineering products. And so I think there is more than one answer which... Yes. So I want to go back to my question, which is what are the things that you do and what are the things that you don't do? So for a typical customer, what are you actually billing them for? What are they buying?
from you. When you break down the invoice, there's a set of things. Could you kind of shine a bit more light on that? Sure. Let's probably separate a bit large ones and the medium size by smaller ones.
Large ones are actually much more in handling very complex IT systems for product information, the ERP system, where's compliance data. They have a huge complexity already in their infrastructure. And so it's much more... advisory driven to cover that part as well as the broader spectrum of products that are affected because they have usually
a user portfolio of products. And so a lot of different regulations have different impacts on passports. It's not only eco-design. It's like packaging regulation. It's a safety regulation. I got a lot of different ones. In the medium-sized businesses, it's a bit easy. here due to the fact that they don't have the same complexity in either way. They don't have the complexity with the huge spectrum of different product groups as well as they don't usually have.
such a complexity in their IT structures. So it's a bit more... hands-on where to start and then extend to the next and the third one. So that's what we usually do is consulting on the, let's say, the very first part for the larger ones. It's a bigger part of consulting for the medium-sized and small ones is very often they learn it immediately and do it on their own. They understand how to use the system and just go with it. Yeah.
And so you're then selling them, presumably it's a software as a service. So the greater or lesser amount of consulting, and then you sell them a SaaS product. And are you doing the... Because there's a lot of pulling data into the digital product passport. I'm assuming part of your offering is the integration with systems of record for the product information. Is that part of what you're selling?
Yes, we have a reference architecture that starts with the preparation connectors, let's say preparing to have pipelines for different data systems. PIM system, as you mentioned, for information management is often one of them. The ERP system to retrieve or the warehouse system to retrieve production data and sustainability data, compliance data, like a couple of those sources and we connect them.
into what we call a data consolidation hub to make sure whenever we get into real production, we need to be hyperscalable 24-7. There may be no delay. And none of these source systems is usually made for... thousands of interactions in an hour in a minute like that's why we have this consolidation system in between we have a templating system that can be handled within a tutorial system and then after that that's actually like
We use a production system for high volume and high volume hosting. So it's a bit of different stages. How do you handle the conversation with a company that...
¶ Long-Term Value and ROI
has products that last a long time. If I'm selling clothing, I still have clothing that's like, I'm embarrassed to say, but it's probably like 40 years old, maybe even longer. And I have tools that are probably the same. Do you, how you must get resistance from large companies that are making tens, hundreds of millions of these things. And then they're saying.
oh, you're going to be billing me for something that's in 10 years' time that I sold? Maybe that customer isn't even using the DPP. How do you deal? I guess there's multiple questions. wrapped up in that. But let me just say, how do you deal with that issue, which is a kind of a new one? Because initially, you know, you ship the product and that was it. Maybe you sold service and that was just...
money coming in. That wasn't a problem. But now you're shipping a product and you have an obligation and an opportunity that goes on for years. Yes, and then I'm sorry for picking up the same words again, but that's the point of the duty and the beauty. The obligation is not what we do. The obligation is what happens due to the change in society and legislation in Europe.
But it means, on the other hand, for every company and their competitors, it's the same expectation. So being compliant is something that is a hygienic function midterm scene. Like, you have to do it. part of the market so the only thing we can we can talk about like how to achieve at lowest cost the same result There is no differentiation, basically. But the beauty of it is, what's the value of having a better relation to your client?
Some customers, some corporations are just selling our products until we don't care about relations. Once it's sold, it's gone, done, thank you. And I think that is something that's changing in a lot of ways. different industries more and more the value of a real relationship knowing a client or at least having an optional contact so that the client can get in touch directly.
efficiently saying i need a spare part i need exactly this piece to repair my product that is something that has a value it makes the cost of identifying spare parts small And it gives the extra value that I know you as a client and I can potentially offer you, you know, I give you a discount for a trade and let me take care of proper recycling and I give you a discount for the next generation. So if that has value...
To a business, they have a lot of advantages thinking of a DPP beyond the regulation. If you only narrow it down like, okay, what do I have to report? What's the name of information? I never want to talk to any of my clients. Okay, then we are at the level of a product data sheet more or less. Yeah. I mean, it's a very interesting time. I mean, I think... You know, on one hand, I can see huge lifetime value. Jason Burns is...
I've been trying to get him on the podcast for years. He's the SVP of Innovation and Sustainability at Ralph Lauren. who have been very progressive in this area. They have digital product passports for, I think, all of their products, certainly all of their polo shirts. They have a little QR code, and you can go to the website.
And, you know, he has an amazing vision around circularity where it's a bit like a Tesla. The easiest way, if you've got a Tesla, a lot of people here are trying to sell them. What's the easiest way to sell them? You give it back to Tesla. and we'll try and sell you another Tesla. And I think maybe that's a bad analogy given all of the... controversy around that company, but they've still got a pretty good PE ratio and market cap. So whatever you think of the people.
You know, with Jason, he sees this opportunity for the secondary market. If your clothing has a residual value, then you can sell it for more and then you get another slice of the... of the pie when you sell it again it seems like amazing but you know what i've learned and and uh you know when i was at willyot uh it seems like eons ago battery-free bluetooth tags I remember we engaged with a manufacturer of herbs and spices, and there was a consultant there that developed this amazing prototype.
of smart packaging that had a digital product passport and basically you ended up subscribing to herbs and spices and so you can see the roi would be amazing you know your loyalty cost of customer acquisition demand signals it could revolutionize it but as a company They're like 100 years old. And it's like their ability to change into that vision is so limited because it's just a massive change. And I...
You know, my personal feeling is it took Amazon to make the change in Omnichannel. Everyone was saying, no, no, the internet, it's a toy. And then suddenly they start. dominating. And it's only when a new company that doesn't have all the baggage that believes in it comes in and starts decimating market categories that people will respond. Maybe it's going to be different because now we've got legislation around this thing. But I'm interested in your kind of prognosis on people's readiness to...
extract the value, gain the benefit of the beauty from this. Because I would posit that it... We're not there yet because if we were, you know, it would be obvious. There would be like this massive... We'd all be flying in executive jets and all of that sort of thing. So I'm very interested in where you think we are in the timing. I've sort of asked that question again, so maybe I'll kind of frame it more on the, are there any areas where you see people really...
making money from the digital product passport, the beauty? Where are you most hopeful, at least? And I'm trying to sort the questions in the right order that I have. Yeah, it was very rambling. I think in all those sectors or industries, where the advanced understanding of the value of data is already present. Because there is already, let's say, the biggest puzzle where it's like there is a performance marketing.
Or there is the, let's say, the secondary stage of understanding AI, because there's the first stage of, oh, that's great what's coming out. And the next stage is usually asking, how is that happening? And then the simple answer is, oh, there is learning from data. otherwise AI wouldn't happen. So in both ways, the data about clients, the data about products, the data about whatever it is right over and if that is...
Part of the business strategy, they are adapting very fast, and they see the difference between the set omnichannel, which is always focused on, let me sell the next product. It's not focusing on... And after sales, I want to be in touch with you. It's only focusing on making sure that I'm selling something. And I think that is changing in a world where non-obtrusive communication of brand.
relevant communication of the brand then when it's actually needed is something that gets a special value. I don't know anybody who's not annoyed about being flooded with advertising. So taking that you means companies who realize that this is a communication channel where I have a great chance of providing relevant information and find a proper balance between
customer-centric operations and not too much marketing but some marketing that is a huge opportunity and those who sell products in a retail world and never see any client and are not interested in it They are probably on the slower end of transition into the beauty of it, because they only see no value in knowing clients, and they only see the cost of compliance.
¶ Supply Chain and Global Views
Interesting. So how much is the supply chain visibility part of all of this? Obviously, provenance is. The bill of materials is. It sounded, I'm intuiting from what you said, that you started off with food and then you... It doesn't seem like there's DPP legislation around food, although it seems like that would be so terribly useful. It's a real shame that's not the case. How much of a requirement is there for...
detailed traceability on the handling. And I guess food would be the area, maybe medicine would be another area. Is that part of the digital product passport? Let me pick up the questions in two parts. One part is which product groups are subject to the DPP, and the second part is in which territory. Okay.
in the european perspective and the european digital product passport as it is of today medicines pharmaceutical products food and feed are excluded due to the fact that Those three categories of products are actually subject to the GG Health, which is a very different, let's say, department of regulation within the European Union. And it is not typically touched by recyclability and circularity. Like none of these three is player number one to be circular.
That's a reason to be saying that. So for at least two and probably more than those reasons, that's not really that relevant too much. Upstream transparency, which you were mentioning for provenance and traceability, is definitely a relevant question. for food, pharmaceuticals, and other products. But from a perspective as I understand it today, and the European view on it of the digital product passport is much more downstream related than upstream related.
There's some sort of providing transparency, we should say supporting transparency, but it's not the focus on a detailed supply chain, upstream visibility. It's much more the focus on providing all information that is necessary along the way downstream to support all the other processes from maintaining the clearing to recycling. And beyond the European Union, the views are different.
There is, let's say, other organizations working on digital border passports who have a stronger focus on upstream transparency. They have different rule sets. They have different intentions. So the global view is not yet. established there are a lot of different let's say opinions on what a dpp is and so probably that will take some time to get it somewhat leveled in a common understanding and in a type of interoperability
And what are you seeing in other regions? The obvious one is the US, which doesn't have all this legislation, but there are many businesses that export to Europe. Are you seeing... interest there or do you have your hands full dealing with European countries? We are already working for even larger U.S. companies since exactly what you mentioned, exporting to the European Union puts it right away.
to the same point of like how do i get a proper understanding what are the data points needed what is the form it needed How do I, as a non-EU company, handle everything that's necessary to keep on my sales channel in the European Union? And I think in the US there's much more understanding for the beauty immediately because the idea of knowing customers and getting the value out of it is probably a much more common understanding in a lot of US industries.
It's not just a European question. The same about Asia, by the way, exporting to Europe as well. Same points. And where are the management consulting companies on this? Do you see...
¶ Industry Momentum and Resolvers
most of them have mature practices in this area? Because it seems like, on one hand, You have an incredible opportunity. You're one of the world's leading experts in this space. And so that must be kind of a nice thing to have in your kind of value proposition. On the other hand, I can imagine you kind of want to be redundant. You know, in the ideal world, Deloitte and PwC would have a massive practice that are just taking people through all the...
preamble and just delivering your product customers so that you can be a pure play SaaS company. Where are things progressing on that front? Well, without being permitted to phrase the names of brands, but of course, that's the key point that we are collaborating or cooperating with.
the big firms regarding our consultancy and strategic management consultancy since they come out of the supply chain information usually that has shifted within Europe now how the let's say timeline and pressure on those regulations for reporting about sustainability is when they see their clients asking for TPPs and how to handle all these questions. And so we are like, you know.
reproducing the knowledge and helping to find a good cooperation and training to work together with management consulting firms since we're not a management consulting firm. by nature we have a couple of things we can do but we're definitely none of those so we are very happy and open to cooperate with them some of them are already established partnerships So are these niche practices or do you see large numbers of momentum in those management consulting organizations?
There's currently definitely a momentum. If you look at the big market research companies, they are like in the IT world, and so there are like a couple of big names. They are already working on preparing studies. getting transparency on providers and methods and maturity definitions. And the same about the advisory part of it. So there is a huge move going on, if you ask me from my perception.
every day. Is there a Gartner Group Magic Quadrant for this area yet, or do you think that's on its way? Yeah, I have a very clear opinion on it because I had the… the honor to be having a panel discussion with the gardener
a VP analyst a few weeks ago in Austria. And let's say from what I learned about the Gardner strategy, there is a multiple-step approach. And so my magic quadrant is the... the peak information that before that there were like preliminary studies and it was to me the very first time i saw a Gartner study mentioning a digital product passport on a slide being part of something
That's so-called the product experience management, which is definitely something that's adding next to compliance parts into customer experience parts. So it's... To me, it's clearly coming, and it wasn't the only one, there were a few hundred others sitting in the same room when that presentation was shown. So to me, this is a very great signal that this is more than a datasheet. Yeah. This is a new shift, how we will interact with specific products. Very good.
I have a geeky question here, so I kind of saved it to the end, but I'm interested in your view on the role of the resolver. And I don't want to get into standards and that sort of thing. I'm thinking about it more as an architectural entity. So a resolver that basically takes a product ID from some kind of auto ID, barcode, QR code.
NFCRF ID, and then points that ID, refers it to a digital product passport. And, you know, to me, this is like a really... critical thing but you know my speculation is that this is going to be first of all it's pretty amazing that the eu is going to be hosting a resolver to do this it's i mean to me that's like this massive deal. And in my mind, the question is, well, who's going to host the Resolver for the rest of the world?
But I come back to it and how much of it is really necessary and what do you think it's really for? Because obviously a QR code can have a URL or a... GS1 digital link to a digital passport. Why not just have the payload in the ID? Can you educate me a bit on that, if you would? I'm not sure if I can really educate, but I would try to share what I can say and what I think about it on a personal point of view. Let's say...
I'm not sure where you have the statement that the EU would host a resolver. I'm not sure about it yet, so I don't know to be precise on that. But let's say what I see regarding the Resolver Christian is there is, let's say, a conflict of interests. Once you create a system of resolvers, the operating entity has a very strong data privacy question on its end.
Knowing the number of requests for a certain product could tell you a lot about the relevance in the market, comparing two companies with the same product ID and with the same product, not the same product ID. You could start asking, why is this requested twice? the number than the other one. So resolvers are, I think, not an easy question. And so some of them are just thinking this is an authority-driven that probably takes out the data privacy issue a bit.
But it's something that's different to think of globally. Who is globally neutral? I don't know. And so I don't have an easy answer for that. I would rather ask... what's the motivation for having a resolver? And probably there are different ones. You mentioned GS1, where I see the resolver has a functional purpose that resolves different information needs.
If I think about the European commissions or European discussion about the European passports, it's much more as far as I would think the discussion about how to make sure that there was a passport always available. It doesn't say separate information needs. It says more like, how do I make sure that the password is available if the business doesn't exist anymore? So from my point of view, there's all the questions, a very difficult one, and I don't know the answer for it.
global point or global view on that and i've my personal view is always you know there are different carrier technologies i always wonder like what would happen if the major new companies reading a QR code would think about a concept of reading two URLs, and the first one fails to take the other one. So if that would happen, do I really need it to go over anymore? I do not need it to go over. But this is just a prey of thought. So it's not more than that. Well, so Thomas, I…
¶ Personal Journey and Reflections
The favorite part of the show, I'm going to ask you about your three choices of songs that have meaning for you personally. What did you come up with? Well, that's a challenging question. But one song is very easy for me. The very, very, very first song I remember is Bruce Springsteen releasing the river.
I'm not even sure if it was Tujujib. I think something around 10 could be a year earlier or could be 11. But that was basically the day I started to be a Bruce Springsteen fan. So that's a kind of meaningful song to me since... Since then, I've been following all his music my entire life. Have you seen him live? Yeah, multiple times. Not all the concerts I would really want it.
to have seen with at least quite a few, maybe eight or nine or ten or so. But let's say, talking about 40 years, not that much. That's pretty amazing. He's got some real staying power, hasn't he? And obviously someone that's been in the news a lot recently. Very good. So that's number one. What about number two? Yeah, that is a bit challenging because some of them are actually probably not internationally known. So I try to narrow down those songs that are...
internationally known, right? Well, it doesn't matter. Actually, we've had some amazing Indian music, which has been completely unfamiliar to me. But really, the important thing is the... The reason why it's meaningful to you. So it could be anything. So then the other song is Herbert Grunemeyer. He's a German artist.
And he did a song called Bochum. I'm not sure if you ever heard about it. Bochum, like, naturally speaking, it's like a workers' area song, and he's coming out of the metropolitan rural area, which is... famous for mining for decades and it was kind of like the voice of the mid 80s which was you know my my youth time between 14 and 18 already having computers at that time which was not really
very common, let's say, but not spending a nerd life, more like a regular life. What was that first computer that you had? Well, I said the real computer, and don't talking about electronics, the true computer was the Apple II computer. Oh, wow. That was 1982, roughly. That was the... The Apple I was only in the US and the wooden box, but the Apple II computer was then finally, let's say, industrially manufactured and actually shipped to Europe. Amazing. That's what I remember.
Very cool. And song number three? Well, yeah. Probably, honestly speaking, I don't really recall the name, but The River Flows In You, that's the title, and I was trying to look up who actually did it first, and I couldn't pick it up quickly, and I probably lost it, but it was an electronic song. In the 2010, roughly, which was a big change after I sold my first company and I was rethinking what to do.
with the rest of my life, basically. It doesn't really sound like I would be done with it. I didn't want to express that. I just wanted to say it was like a start for a moment to rethink what do I want to do next. and with a song that has a lot of meaning at that time. Yeah, well, I mean, you've sold your company. It's a milestone. What were your thoughts about what you wanted to do next? Were there a set of things that you said that were core to that next step? Yes.
was basically to make sure that I look in a calendar that's just empty. since I haven't seen one for 20 years. So I remember exactly when everything was, let's say, completed transaction and I'd been for two years at the company that, let's say, bought us. When everything was... completed. The very first thought were to stop entirely being scheduled, at least for some time, and to rethink what could be next.
Like a soccer game, as we say in Europe, like taking a halftime break and think a little bit about how do we want to play in the second half. That was basically what it took for about a year. That's great. And what did you decide was important to you? You took some time. I'm interested. Well, the first was to travel.
simply speaking, just to see a lot of things. When you're in the middle of work all the time, at least I didn't really see that much of the world, so I took a time walk to travel a bit, rethink, and... Computers have been first part of my life, and so in the end I came back to, okay, I will do something with computers. It's just what I did all my life so far, and I kept doing it, and that's since 2010.
to today, so the last 15 years again. So just a bit different from the context, but overall, I came back to what I was used to, digitalization. What made you choose digital product passports? What was it that was behind that? Yeah, let's say initially I came from traceability thoughts. I was pretty convinced that... products do have a material value chain and any material value chain. And so initially I did a lot of software regarding traceability and recording the provenance of products.
But it ended up bringing a QR code on the packaging, which I never found really satisfying since, to me at least, QR codes were kind of like... Not the key to everything, since nobody knew exactly what to expect once you scan one. And the digital product passport is the major shift in shifting a consumer's expectation into something meaningful. So the data carrier, if it is a QR code, if it is an NFC tag, or any other kind of technology, let's say, but...
shifting it to a meaning, what you will see when you scan something digitally attached to a physical quadripe. That was the concept of the Digital Quadrant Passport, which excited me from day one. Okay, very interesting. Haven't you come across this book before? Bruce Sterling's a science fiction writer, and it was new to me, but one of our previous guests...
Turn me on to it. Simon Ford, CEO of a really great Bluetooth company. And it's called Shaping Things. And it is about 20 years old. And it talks about this. Spimes, but it's basically a digital product passport in its fullest instantiation associated with the circularity of a product. It's really quite...
an amazing thing. I haven't finished it. I'm only about a third of the way through, but it's like when you're reading something and you think you've got original ideas and then you read something and it's been written 20 years ago by a science fiction writer. It's really fascinating. fascinating. If you haven't, then I recommend it. Yeah, I will definitely look it up. I haven't read it, and it sounds fascinating, and I'm really honestly curious to hear.
to read and figure out what we're mentioning. That sounds interesting. Well, very good.
¶ Concluding Remarks and Music
Thomas, thanks for getting us up to speed on DPP and Narivero, which I think is an amazing company, very early, great expertise, some amazing customers that you're working with. great to hear about that. So thanks for the conversation. Thank you so much. It is a big pleasure talking to you, and I'm very happy to look forward to meeting you in Amsterdam soon. I'm happy to keep that conversation going on because I think the DPP has just started and we will see stages of development.
Always open, and thank you very much for having me invited here today, and I'm very open to repeat it once we see there is something new to talk about, and I'm more than happy to keep our conversation going. Thank you. I look forward to it. So that was Naravaro. I think they're an interesting company and I really enjoyed meeting a number of folks from the company at AIPIA, the Smart Packaging Conference.
I've started talking about the music that I've been listening to. And this week I've been listening to the Rolling Stones. This is one of my favorite Rolling Stones albums. Some girls, it's a testament to the wonders of the vine. format because the packaging is absolutely amazing with these faces that appear behind the cutouts and some amazing tracks, Miss You. Imagination, many other great songs. And I'm actually choosing this because my cousin David Bryson is also a big
Rolling Stones fan and he's been someone that I have looked up to for many years. So this is a tribute to David Bryson. Thank you very much for listening or watching. Thank you very much to Aaron Hammock, who takes on 100% of the work from here to publishing. Do take care, enjoy the journey, and we'll see you next time. Join us for tips, tricks and all those magical, beautiful baby experiences on Parenting Heaven. It's just so wonderful. Oh, really?
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