Article

The two faces of Kiosks Europe 2002

A mixture of keen enthusiasm for promising projects and a businesslike reality that the basics matter highlighted this year's Kiosks Europe trade show and conference in Amsterdam.

June 25, 2002

AMSTERDAM -- Kiosks Europe 2002, the largest kiosk-specific event in Europe, mirrored the current Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde nature of the kiosk industry during its June 17-19 run at the Hotel Okura in Amsterdam.

The trade show and conference brought together kiosk industry veterans and consultants with newcomers to network and discuss the key lessons from some of Europe's many kiosk deployments.

The content of the conference presentations included the usual stories of successful projects, exciting new business models, and service innovations. On the flip side, however, there was considerable discussion of getting back to the basics and of survival strategies. Reliability, simplicity, and lower costs were frequently mentioned as the top goals for any kiosk project.

The conference started with a day of how-to workshops on June 17, led by leading kiosk consultants Francie Mendelsohn and John Purcell. This was followed by the main conference: two days of presentations and an exhibit space that featured representatives from 25 companies.

About 150 attendees, representing 90 companies and 15 countries, attended this year's show. Last year's event at the Wembley Conference Center in London attracted about 300 attendees and 20 exhibitors. Despite the smaller number of attendees, Lawrence Dvorchik, executive director of KioskCom, which organized the event, said there were a lot of positives to pull from the show.

"This year's conference shows improvement from our previous conference in Europe," Dvorchik said. "Our feedback was extremely positive about the venue and diversity of the audience, attracting a wider geographical audience. Despite the seeming slowdown within the kiosk industry worldwide, we saw significant increases in the number of companies represented."

Back to basics

Mendelsohn, president of Summit Research Associates Inc., was the keynote speaker as the show began on June 18. Speaking on the state of the kiosk industry in Europe, she said that 2001 had been a slow year worldwide for kiosks and that the first half of 2002 had also been slow.

"Don't expect a lot for the rest of 2002," Mendelsohn said.

But there are some positives in the industry. Mendelsohn cited Europe and the Pacific Rim as bright spots, with Asia showing the highest growth in kiosk deployments and Europe reaching near parity with North America in volume.

Looking at Europe, she said that the continent's top markets for kiosks include retail, government, ticketing (transportation), and communications. Significant growth is expected in government services and continuing efforts by major payphone operators to deliver a product that is relevant to the Internet and mobile-savvy generation.

Her final observations included a call for 100 percent up-time, simplicity and flexibility, and an attention to location and staff buy-in.

Other speakers in the June 18 morning session focused on flexibility, low-cost, and reliability. Customer buy-in is also critical to a kiosk's success, according to Ger Moffatt of the Bank of Ireland, who described the bank's multi-channel delivery strategies.

While the bank's ATM, call center and Internet banking initiatives have been rousing successes in growing transaction volume and lifting customer satisfaction, two kiosk initiatives failed at the pilot stage. Moffatt said the bank's criteria for new projects now include recognition from customers, bottom-line return, reliability, and minimal impact on the branches.

The back to basics theme was reiterated on June 19 during a panel discussion on kiosk technologies that included Purcell, Netkey Inc. president and chief executive officer Alex Richardson, Dave Haverty, kiosk business development manager for IBM Europe, and Carolin Sommer, product specialist for 3M Touch Systems UK.

Richardson focused on the need to reduce total cost of developing and managing kiosk projects.

"The kiosk industry needs speed, lower total cost, and rapid delivery of ROI in order to grow," Richardson said. Answering a question about new technologies, he said that in today's climate and in the foreseeable future, "if a kiosk is a technology showcase, it is highly likely to fail."

Nonetheless, Richardson is upbeat about the future of kiosks, saying retail kiosks will reach the must-have phase within 1 ½ years.

Haverty and Sommer agreed with Richardson on the need for simplicity.

"It musn't look like technology," Haverty said. "(We must) make what we have now work and simplify usage before moving on to new technologies. A successful kiosk project cannot only be a different way, it must be a better or an only way."

Sommer said project managers must also focus on getting the buy-in of everyone involved.

Purcell, who recently departed as vice president of marketing NetShift Software Ltd. to focus his energies on his own consulting firm, Purcell Associates, said kiosk technologies must become secure, customizable and scalable. He also said that e-commerce projects should accept cash and coins along with credit cards.

Kiosk ambitions

While much of the evangelizing took a conservative tone, three ambitious European projects did receive a hearing during the June 18 session.

British Telecom (BT) director Paul Hendron and general manager, multimedia kiosks, Andy Green, discussed the company's new Web payphone, which it has co-developed in a partnership with Marconi Corp. Plc. BT plans to roll out 28,000 units over the next five years.

The fourth incarnation of a combined payphone, Web browser, and e-mail terminal developed by BT, the new project has undergone customer testing in recent months, and Green said BT is pleased with the results. He said 30 percent of the terminal's use has been for normal phone calls, with the remaining 70 percent dedicated to data services.

Following BT was a presentation by Barry Wallis, retail development controller for convenience store chain SPAR UK, and Bryan Wright, managing director of Brandplace Ltd. Wallis and Wright discussed the SPAR-Brandplace plan to launch a series of 3,000 online retailer access kiosks at SPAR locations.

The kiosk offers products from a limited number of online retailers. An initial four-month, 10-kiosk trial was promising, with 2,400 purchases made and more than 15,000 browsers using the kiosk. Flowers, tickets, music, travel services, and chocolate were available during the trial. Brandplace's business model is familiar: Own the kiosk, operate the network, pay rental fees and a percentage of sales to the retailer, and collect sales commission.

The third project presented during the session was the most advanced as far as deployments, as PEPC marketing and communications director Joris van Dijk discussed the company's PRESSPOINT newspaper kiosks. Using dedicated bandwidth on a satellite network, PEPC can download more than 100 daily newspapers through its PRESSPOINT kiosks. Customers can pay for the paper with a credit card or pre-paid PEPC card, and have the newspaper printed out (in tabloid form) within two minutes.

There are currently 75 PRESSPOINT units worldwide, primarily at hotels and resort destinations. Each kiosks costs about $10,000 and the papers it prints cost between $3.50 and $5. During the session, von Djik said the kiosks are printing between 15 and 20 papers per day. The dedicated bandwidth and central staff needed for managing the newspaper content creates a high fixed cost, but van Djik did not give any estimates on when the company would reach the break-even point.

Odds and ends

Other speakers at the conference included Kiosks.org Association executive director Craig Keefner, who opened the June 19 session with a discussion on kiosk usage trends in the hospitality, entertainment, grocery, convenience store, and retail industries; UK Jobcenters project manager Guy Browes, who discussed the employment agencies employment search kiosks, a deployment of 9,000 kiosks; and Keymat Technologiesfounding director Peter Jarvis, who discussed ways to fend off kiosk vandalism.

Purcell closed the conference on June 19 with a presentation on kiosk revenue generation. Purcell provided an extensive series of kiosk project checklists and tools for risk management.

Kiosks Europe 2002 was also the stage for Kiosks.org Association's first European meeting. The meeting, which took place at the end of the June 18 session, gave organization officials, including Keefner and chairman Dick Good, the opportunity to discuss Kiosks.org Association's mission and goals.

Keefner, Good, and Mike Sigona, market manager for Elo TouchSystems all spoke during the session, which attracted 40 attendees.