A. Brand reputation is one of the most important aspects for an organization to protect. It builds loyalty and increases customer confidence, ultimately driving sales and revenue growth.

It only takes one bad incidence to damage your reputation – fake, diverted or tampered products. To reduce the risk of this happening, organizations need an end-to-end authentication solution that can combat illicit trade and manage the integrity of their complex global supply chain. This solution should have a multi-layered approach to security features including both overt and covert features and traceability.

The future of this industry is heavily influenced by increasing regulations and both government and consumer demand for traceability. We see an increase in labelling requirements, especially in Europe, and governments requiring traceability.

We also believe consumers will become more sensitized to the dangers of illicit products and, as a result, consumer level authentication will become more important.

Our vision remains unchanged. We remain committed to the protection and betterment of society by ensuring the integrity of products, brands and global commerce. However, we believe the array of innovative solutions we bring to help brand companies will continue to expand to include the application of data science to deliver prescriptive insights to help our customers mitigate risks to promote revenue growth and gain competitive advantage.

Both. Keeping products authentic, safe and connected across the supply chain—from manufacturing to the consumer’s hands is what everyone wants. Providing foundational solutions to help organizations combat counterfeiting and diversion, while enabling them to meet regulatory compliance mandates wherever they do business, is essential for brand sustainability and ensuring consumer trust and loyalty.

They are all important. And all different. The future of brand protection is already here. Systech provides a comprehensive Brand Protection Suite of software offerings with complete integration and operational insight throughout the supply chain. We provide integrated Anti-Counterfeiting, Diversion Detection and Regulatory Compliance solutions. true and safe products lead to brand loyalty and consumer engagement.

Serialization was introduced in the pharma industry to protect the supply chain from counterfeits entering the market, but in reality it is really just a false true product indicator and for some markets, a compliance initiative, not a brand protection solution. Beyond pharma, new, all-digital approaches that connect physical product to digital records has become a trusted solution that enables cross-supply chain mobility using technology such as Systech’s e-Fingerprint®. This also means that emerging technologies like blockchain can be employed, which combine digital identity with authenticated and trusted physical product identity offering complete visibility and more robust information and data capture, which can be used for competitive advantage.

Because you cannot fight new battles with old weapons. You must continue to innovate. Protecting the supply chain from counterfeiters has been on the regulatory agenda for some time. As such, in the pharma industry, we’ve witnessed the implementation of compliance regulations to help combat the threat of falsified medicines and protect patient safety. But compliance does not equal brand protection or anti-counterfeiting. The problem is only getting worse on a global scale. And not just in pharmaceuticals. Cosmetic and beauty products as well as wine and spirits and luxury items are feeling the painful effects of their products (or so-called products) being diverted or counterfeited.

We look forward to sharing our thought leadership and engaging with delegates interested in protecting their brands and consumers that receive their products. Understanding the possibilities for improved supply chain security and how best to keep products authentic, safe and connected across the supply chain—from manufacturing to the consumer’s hands—is in everyone’s best interest.

Trust is everything, reach is only spreading the word. Brands with a good quality of products will always have a demand for an image of trusted products. Besides this it should always be a combination of both, reach and trusted products. The brand's nature defines which of the two, reach or trust, shall be emphasized.

This all goes hand in hand in an ever-changing brand environment that puts consumers confidence in a brand in first place. Owning a brand will always include being aware of registering and protecting it from infringers. This will be followed by defining distribution channels. Brand loyalty may be achieved when following these steps but does not occur without the other aspects.

The ability of brands to include their customers into activities avoiding infringing activities. Consumers of trusted brands will help to safeguard these. Besides this, having a customized brand protection approach, image research, online monitoring as well as marketplace liability and specific country legislations will help overcoming new challenges that will rise with further digitization and global trade.

Offer the most comprehensive solutions and services for all brand protection, compliance and distribution control measures in the market. Offering a combination of highly specialized software tools that we can adjust to the needs of our clients and our managed services providing in-depth information, we are 360 degrees customer-centric.

Brands’ products must be reliable, safe, warrantied, and trusted in order to have a sustainable business in today’s competitive marketplace. A company’s reputation can be destroyed overnight if counterfeiters flood the market with inferior knock-off products that do not perform according to the brand’s advertised specifications.

From a marketing perspective, certainly Brand Awareness and Loyalty are important to manufacturers. With digitization through QR/2D barcodes, RFID, and NFC tags, brand owners can enable consumer/patient engagement through their packaging strategies. Marketing spiffs can be launched from consumer smartphone barcode or NFC scans, while obtaining geocache data and product identifiers useful for brand protection programs.

“Big Data” will play a huge role in brand protection in the years to come. As smart packaging and interactive labels become omnipresent across all industries and channels, product authentication, supply chain tracking, and consumer data will drive business decisions and enable enforcement actions around the world. The dashboard analytics provided to brand protection investigators will provide a treasure trove of leads, while satisfying the marketing organizations within brands.

Our vision is to enable safe and effective global commerce through the distribution and sale of authentic product around the world. In doing so, VerifyMe, Inc. provides brand protection investigators, customs officials, distributors, online auction sites, consumers, and other stakeholders the ability to quickly and easily identify counterfeit and diverted goods, utilizing connected technologies available everywhere. VerifyMe, Inc. enables brand owners to more quickly and easily identify counterfeiters and product divertors, through seamless overt and covert marking and serialization solutions deployed through HP Indigo digital presses and other commercial printing platforms. Our brand protection solutions integrate the overt and covert marking of physical products, packaging, and labels using our RainbowSecure ink, while linking the marks to our GS-1 compliant “VeriPAS” cloud- based product authentication and tracking service. Through our gateway server and open platform, VeriPAS can enable the use of third-party track & trace software systems, as well.