Throughout 2014, Zetes has been celebrating its 30th anniversary in each of our regions. It marks 30 years of putting our knowledge and expertise to work for customers. 30 years of good ideas, exciting projects, and constant learning for our teams of automatic identification specialists. Here is an overview Zetes’ history, told through five questions we put to our CEO, Alain Wirtz.

Zetes has been going for 30 years. How was the company created?

Alain Wirtz: It all started in 1984 with Colruyt, one of Belgium’s biggest food and non-food retailers. We helped them modernise their stores by converting from a perforated card system to barcodes.  After that, our customer portfolio gradually expanded and diversified. 1984 marked the birth of Zetes and the start of our Goods ID division. Our second division, People ID, was created much later, towards the end of the 1990s.

How did the People ID division come into existence?

Alain Wirtz: First, we acquired a company that produced magnetic cards. The boom in People ID happened a few years later, when we had the honour of producing identity cards for Belgium. In fact, we still do this and are proud to count our own government amongst our customers. We continued developing our technologies and branched out into biometrics. This enabled us to work on large population registration projects in several African countries. That was a further step towards international expansion, which began with numerous acquisitions in Europe prior to this.

What has made this 30th anniversary special?

Alain Wirtz: For me, the most noteworthy event has been repositioning and reorganising what we offer into six turnkey solutions for the supply chain. We adopted this new strategy just over a year and a half ago. It is now starting to produce results and the future looks very promising. In terms of People ID, Zetes is one of the few companies covering the whole biometric chain and production of secure documents. Our Goods ID activities have changed the way hundreds of thousands of people work, but People ID is on a different scale. By working for governments, we have a direct impact on their citizens and this affects tens of millions of people.

What are Zetes’ main challenges today?

Alain Wirtz: Technology is developing faster and faster all the time and you have to keep up, or your solutions quickly become obsolete. Like all software developers, we need to constantly improve our solutions to give our customers the essential features they need and remain at the cutting edge of technology. At the same time, regulatory authorities are imposing ever tougher directives. Our job is to adapt our solutions to satisfy the customers' needs, so that they in turn can comply with increasingly stringent requirements. This work is a constant challenge and the adrenaline generated drives us forward to keep improving.

What do ou think is the secret ingredient that makes Zetes what it is today?

Alain Wirtz: There isn't really a secret. First, I think you have to constantly invest in good people and that's what we try to do at Zetes. Over the years, as our company has expanded, we have always made the most of the knowledge and abilities of new employees. This remains one of our core values today. Secondly, customers are a big factor behind our success. Whether new or long-standing, customers bring us increasingly complex projects, which forces us to go the extra mile and identify new solutions. Let’s hope we can continue achieving this 30 years from now!