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KiosksEurope offers '`can't miss' sessions

The three days of KiosksEurope 2003 last week saw Dublin act as a crossroads for the global kiosk industry, with visitors from all over the world attending the forum.

November 16, 2003

DUBLIN, Ireland -- The three days of KiosksEurope 2003 last week saw Dublin act as a crossroads for the global kiosk industry, with visitors from all over the world attending the forum.

With more than 100 people attending over the three days, this was an ideal opportunity to gain a view of the European kiosk market and learn from some of the best in the industry.

Flying into Ireland, I was struck by the acceptance of vending and self-service in the country and realized that this made an ideal place to look at the projects that are shaping the kiosk and self-service industry.

Planning the show, I struggled to find a session that I felt I could miss to enable me to spend time compiling my notes and talking with the exhibitors. After asking Lawrence of KioskCom to include some sessions next year that aren't so relevant, to allow delegates time to visit this city, I realized that the quality of the conference is critical.

No single answer

Lawrence said his mission is to provide end users with the information they need to deploy kiosk projects, and that this year the focus is to be on country analysis of markets and application-specific case studies of projects. The show's steering committee had obviously helped in this area. The steering committee included John Purcell of Purcell and Associates, Charles and Robert Porter of Euro Kiosks Network, Eckard Reimann, Dmmv/ECRM, and Stephan Herron, an independent consultant.

The conference program brought together key players in the European kiosk industry and featured presentations from the customers and deployers of kiosk projects. This was a great opportunity for everyone to learn.

The theme that emerged from the sessions was that there is no single answer in the kiosk business. One speaker even went as far as saying that there are no companies that can do it all. This means that partnerships are vital to the success of kiosk projects as deployers will demand the delivery of best of breed.

Food for thought for deployers and venders alike was that projects are still going ahead without clear, measurable objectives. This lack of feasibility study has lead to many deployers being unsuccessful in their projects: clear objectives have not been established at the outset to allow the project to be monitored.

The conference sessions also highlighted the wide variety of kiosk projects that exist, and how companies need to keep their minds open when looking at markets for the self-service technology.

Examples of this included the presentation from Bjorge Stavik from the city of Oslo, which uses self-service/kiosk technology in delivery of a map solution. This is far from a standard project.

Speaking out

With such an international mix of speakers, it was a great opportunity to learn about different solutions in similar sectors. A great presentation from Nikos Geropanagiotis, of Mecca Neue Medien, looked at how to manage complexity in a kiosk project and how a simple solution is often best, especially in a retail environment.

The retail theme was also looked at by Hansjorg Bausch of Kaufhof Warenhaus AG, which has deployed 350 kiosks across 88 stores to give shoppers access to their loyalty system. This project also won the DMM award in 2003.

Still on the retail shelf were Dr. Angela Berrisch and Dr. Susanne Franke of Pironet NDH Ag, who gave an overview of the Future Store Initiative, a vital project to aid the acceptance of new technology by Europe's retailers.

The next generation of payphones were looked at in a number of presentations. It is interesting to see how much of an impact cultural and corporate differences have had on the deployment and acceptance of these phones in various European countries.

One presentation was from Andy Green of BT Multimedia on how the success of the BT webphone is being leveraged to work in the kiosk space. This is a company to watch in the next few years, as they will be a major player in this space.

Still in the telephony arena, a presentation by Jason Williams of Alphyra looked at the mobile top up market and how the acceptance of pre-paid services in Europe presents an opportunity to the kiosk industry for transactional units.

Healthy debate

In the transactional versus informational debate, there seemed to be a number of different positions -- from people talking about how transactional kiosks will be the sole survivors, to the view that informational units could work in the right area.

E-government projects were looked at, with the City of Stuttgart introducing its use of kiosks to bridge the digital divide and deliver online services. Greater Manchester Passenger Transport Executive showcased its excellent passenger information kiosk.

Still in e-government, Martina Zorko of the Health Insurance Institute of Slovenia gave a great introduction to Slovenia's health insurance kiosk project, which is a brilliant example of how to roll out a national network of kiosks to reach a population and deliver key services.

The timeless debate of "is an ATM a kiosk" continued with speakers presenting both sides of the argument. Dr Matthew Wood of KAL argued that an ATM is just a kiosk with a cash dispenser, but also went on to deliver valuable points on how, regardless of the definition, the ATM industry has valuable lessons for the kiosk business in terms of development, testing, robustness and dedicated use.

John Purcell of Purcell and Associates delivered a great opening to the conference and placed into context Europe's kiosk industry as it stands at present and how it will develop. He also delivered some interesting stats on the deployers' view of their projects and expected return. He then gave his opinion on what was hot in the kiosk business and what was not, something that was still leading debate on the third day.

Country of origin

Country-oriented panel sessions highlighted the differences that exist in Europe, as well as the potential that exists across Europe for partnerships.

These sessions included examples of projects that have and haven't worked in specific countries, but which have had different results in other European countries. The highlights of these country/regional presentations included an overview of the vibrant Spanish market by Charles Porter of Euro Kiosk Network, and a look at the UK and Irish markets.

A panel featured presentations and viewpoints from across mainland Europe. These presentations highlighted the challenges that exist for everyone working in the kiosk business in Europe today. It's something that can only be addressed through shows and exhibitions like this one that bring people together.

Overall, the show offered a great chance for discussion and debate. The speakers were thoroughly quizzed at the end of their presentations, with people asking questions relevant to their own personal experiences.

As I left Dublin I saw a group of people gathered around an Eircom webphone, and realized that -- as one speaker put it -- as an industry, we need to move forward and remember that our devices need to engage, transact, entertain or inform the individual to succeed.

Editor's note: Warner is customer relations manager at Working Solutions. Working Solutions, which has been in business for 11 years, specializes in the human machine interface.