ZETES ANNUAL REPORT 2013 | CREATING TOMORROW BY INVESTING TODAY
"OF COURSE WE BELIEVE IN THE FUTURE, WE’RE BUSY BUILDING IT"
Customers, employees and shareholders all play their part in Zetes' innovation process. Our investments reflect a vision of the future. To remain among the best, we don’t improvise our future, we build it.
What’s more important to any State than its citizens? And more precious for a company than its products or production equipment? They cannot risk losing sight of what is most dear to them. For the past 30 years, Zetes has placed its entire expertise at the disposal of customers, enabling them to trace goods and identify people, by linking the physical and virtual worlds. Innovation is born of the exchange of knowledge Customers have a multitude of different needs: data integrity and protection, increased quality and productivity, improved flow management. On top of this, they need systems that are easy to use, requiring a high level of complexity and sophistication from the outset. Over the years, our teams have developed unrivalled reserves of experience. They know our customers' processes. They understand the challenges they face. They have also mastered proven technologies and are keen to investigate emerging ones. It is through this mixture of expertise that Zetes’ solutions are constantly born. They respond to evolving needs and ever increasing demands, whether regulatory or otherwise. During the past year, Zetes has increased its development efforts in both Goods and People ID in order to provide increasingly specific responses to the needs of the markets it serves. Developing solutions today that our customers will need tomorrow In Goods ID, the requirement for by-unit identification is spreading. For the past few years, an increasing number of economic sectors like the pharmaceuticals industry and the luxury sector, and more recently agro-food, have had recourse to introduce
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Ladies and Gentlemen, dear Shareholders,
"It is its customers who are carrying Zetes forward by pushing our teams to excel and find an outstanding response to their challenges."
serialization, which exponentially increases the quantity of data to be recorded in the databases of supply chain stakeholders. Zetes provides a targeted response for each stakeholder. Recently it has developed the concept of a collaborative supply chain and provided tools for sustaining it. The resulting data repository enables data on goods produced, stored or transported to be gathered and for access to supply chain stakeholders concerned to be provided in a totally secure setting. This is not simply a case of replicating existing systems, but developing an integrated solution that the sector can use to solve tomorrow’s challenges and which will create even greater value for the financial stakeholders concerned. The enthusiasm shown by those customers who have already opted to work with Zetes on this initiative clearly demonstrates that this innovation is both necessary and promising for the future of our company. Leadership in one's sector is achieved only at the price of targeted innovation and permanent investment, which Zetes works on continuously. Biometrics and mobile data serving citizen identification In People ID, migratory flows are a driver of prosperity in the world by intensifying exchanges of skills and levelling out age pyramids. But these are possible only under the sovereign control of States, who need to be able to identify their own citizens and control visitors. The rapid increase in
MESSAGE FROM THE EXECUTIVE MANAGEMENT
computer processing power has made it possible to harness biometrics and mobile informatics, which are unbeatable means of precisely controlling individuals. At the request of several states, Zetes has recently developed and implemented biometric and biographical data recording systems, which permit integrated population databases to be constituted. From these systems, issuing of travel documents like passports and visas, enabling citizens to travel worry-free and for States to identify them with 100% certainty, can follow. Such innovative solutions are not the fruit of chance and Zetes has been able to capitalize, when investing in people identification, on its expertise in mobile informatics and ID processes. In so doing Zetes has accumulated references and solidified its reputation, making it a credible candidate supplier for any new identity document market. Our customers are the drivers of progress Clearly, it is our customers that carry Zetes forward and push our teams to excel in finding adequate answers to their challenges. They are the drivers of our progress, as are all our employees, with their desire to provide impeccable service and ambition to create ever-greater value. We wish to express our gratitude to all our customers for the trust they have placed in us, either as the managers of large companies or the leaders of the many states that constitute our references. We also wish to honour the efforts of all our teams, which collaborate beyond job and country boundaries to share their knowledge and enable Zetes Group to develop the most advanced solutions.
attributed to shareholders, to whom Zetes returned an amount of € 3.2 million in the course of the past year. This serves as proof of our gratitude and also our confidence in the company's continued ability to generate strong profits and significant cash flow in the future, which are supported by today's investment.
Finally, these combined development and innovation efforts would not be impossible without large-scale investment, which at this level, is only possible for the strongest Jean-François Jacques and financially well resourced companies. The strength of our balance sheet can be Chairman of the Board
Alain Wirtz Chief Executive Officer
Pierre Lambert Chief Financial Officer
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