Gunnar Ivansson, RACE networkRFID

“RFID presents tremendous business opportunities for small and mid-sized companies.”

Gunnar Ivansson, Chairperson 2010 – 2011, RACE networkRFID

How is your organisation involved in RFID?
The letters "R-A-C-E" in RACE networkRFID stand for Raising Awareness and Competiveness in Europe, which summarises our mission quite nicely. We are dedicated to contributing to a cohesive attitude and international cooperation about RFID. We work to promote pilots, full implementation scenarios and applied research possibilities. But mostly, we are about raising awareness for the public, and especially for SMEs, small and medium-sized enterprises, to help them see and seize the potential benefits of RFID.

What are you doing to raise awareness?
Well, our biggest source of reliable information is our website, www.race-networkrfid.eu. We have made quite a lot of information available there for anyone who has questions. We work to raise awareness with governments and policy-makers across Europe. We have also just launched an online database for SMEs, filled with exemplary case studies and pilot studies that have been undertaken using RFID, and that demonstrate the business support capabilities of the technologies and the potential for achieving significant return on investment. The idea is that SMEs can exchanges ideas, information and experiences, to be able to get good ideas from other companies all while avoiding the mistakes that others have made. That database is available at http://usecases.race-networkrfid.eu/ and we strongly encourage all businesses to enter their own RFID case studies into it.

Do you really think SMEs could benefit from RFID?
Absolutely! RFID presents tremendous business opportunities for small and mid-sized companies. These companies must not be afraid of RFID technology. Our goal is to open their eyes to all the possibilities RFID brings them. RFID suffers from being perceived as "tricky" or "expensive" when in fact it isn't necessarily so.

What role do standards play in the success of RFID?
Standards are the most important aspect to the development of RFID technologies. Perhaps a few very large global corporations could set up successful "closed-loop" RFID systems, but most companies – and certainly all SMEs – cannot. However, with global standards powering RFID applications and services, everything becomes possible. Standards are so important to sharing, to opening up the marketplace. They are critical to the entire supply chain.


RACE networkRFID is designed to become a federating platform to the benefit of all European stakeholders in the development, adoption and usage of RFID. The network's mission is to create opportunities and increase the competitiveness of European Member States in the area of RFID thought leadership, development and implementation. At the same time it will position RFID technology within the mainstream of information and communications technology (ICT). Read more at http://www.race-networkrfid.eu