Photo : D.R.
Created in December 1999 and commercially launched in June 2000, Evolis has, in the space of just a few years, imposed itself as a European leader on the market of personalised plastic cards, and is number 4 in the world, with 12% of the market share.
Indexed on the Alternext market of the Paris Stock Exchange since 2006, it produced a turnover of over 36 million euros in 2008. And while 90% of its sales are carried out for export, all its products are designed and assembled in the French town of Angers, where its head office is located. “This is one of our unique features,” boasts Emmanuel Picot, CEO of Evolis. “We produce electronic products in France and we sell them in Asian countries.”
More specifically, Evolis has a network of 450 importers-distributors in over 90 countries, and 140 employees spread out over 5 sites – in France, of course, but also in the United States, China, Singapore and Japan. “This business-to-business model is a real asset,” considers the CEO of Evolis. “It allows us to multiply our client approach according to the market: national importers-distributors take care of finding integrators who will adopt our products in their solutions. And it is thanks to this two-level commercial strategy that we have managed to develop so quickly, in varied geographical zones and different economic sectors.”
The company’s activities cover the design, production and commercialisation of instant personalisation systems for plastic cards. Personalisation takes place on two levels: printing and the coding of data.
“In one movement, our machines produce photo-quality print over the whole surface area of the card and code, on a magnetic band or chip with or without contact, all the data relating to the card holder,” explains Emmanuel Picot. The range of solutions provided by Evolis covers all needs: monochrome or process printing, single or multiple units, with photos, logos, text or barcodes… And the company has over 250 reference products, that it produces by unit or in large volumes. “This necessitates great flexibility on the production chain,” confides the CEO. “It is a real industrial challenge that we have managed to overcome, all the while maintaining the criteria of quality and price competitiveness.”
Its solutions thus allow all types of cards to be produced: ID badges, student cards, fidelity cards, bank cards, transport passes, club passes, driver’s licences… In other words, Evolis spreads itself out over seven markets: identification (for SMEs, schools and universities, trade fairs and congresses…), security and access control (large companies, administration, hospitals…), transport (subscribers), entertainment (club members), fidelity (fidelity cards), banks (bank cards) and, finally,
administration (national ID cards, driver’s licences, health cards…).
Evolis has also enriched its offer via a project team devoted to studying and producing specific products. Working in collaboration with the market’s technological partners and system integrators, this team has allowed Evolis to carry out several projects, including the personalisation of contact-free ‘Navigo‘ transport passes for the Paris RATP public transport system, bank cards produced on the spot for several
Korean banks, and fidelity cards directly edited in store by the Intermarché stores
in France and Decathlon stores in Spain.
“Our added value compared with our rivals is based on our capacity to adapt
our products in order to meet certain specifications,” puts forward Emmanuel Picot. An approach that benefits Evolis as well, for as the CEO says: “This acts as a technological watch for us. These specific requests are in fact often ahead of market tendencies, and the solutions that we develop to meet them allow us to be already present on the market when the trend generalises.”
Another reason for the success of Evolis is linked to its provision of services, in most sectors, for the instant and decentralised editing of cards containing data. A trend that has an impact on retailers, for loyalty cards, as well as on banks, for bank cards. “We have set up over 15,000 bank agencies throughout the world, with contracts with over ten banks, mainly in Asia, the Middle East, Greece and Turkey,” adds Emmanuel Picot. “Banks can therefore emit credit cards in agencies, within just a few minutes. This decentralised solution is particularly adapted for emitting replacement cards or cards when new accounts are opened.”
For the risk of document counterfeiting, whether for banks or administrations, has been overcome. “Technologies are evolving, the security levels for decentralised solutions are broadly equivalent to those for centralised solutions. Security is carried out on the level of networks and data coding.” This observation allows the CEO of Evolis to look to the future with confidence: “The universe of personalised cards is still at its birth stage. Today, only 1% of banks and 5% of sales chains in the world function in a decentralised manner. So there is a strong potential for growth for all these activities, not to mention the fact that the domain of security is also progressing strongly.”
Protecting company access
Identification and security make up the leading market for Evolis. Access to company premises can be monitored thanks to a printed badge containing computer data on a magnetic band or a chip, with or without contact (RFID technology). This data notably authorises building or room access, and can potentially restrict it to certain timeslots
– a useful service for companies operating in sensitive sectors. “This requires an initial investment, but the lifetime of the cards and their readers is very long,” says Éric Bouvard, Head of Product Marketing for Evolis. “And in order to reduce costs, companies can choose to put security measures in place to only protect the building’s most sensitive sites inside, or even to only protect external access.” Such solutions demonstrate great flexibility. “Access is guaranteed by programming the badge, and can be reconfigured at any time,” points out Éric Bouvard. “And when the card is lost or stolen, it can be immediately deactivated.” Not to mention the other uses that can be made of the one card: “Until very recently, cards only held a bar code or, at best, a magnetic swipe,” continues the Head of Product Marketing. “Today, almost all contain a chip with or without contact. These new systems enable companies to embed on the one card more and more technologies. Therefore, plastic cards have become truly multi-service: as well as building access, our clients can control access to photocopiers or local networks, or even payment functions, for example for paying at the company restaurant.”
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