RFID the way to economic recovery

Who could have foreseen the difficult time of and the slow down of the global economy. The negative news keep on coming, compounding the increase of unemployment, lack of job security, canceled projects, and diminished sales. However, some organizations take advantage of the slow times as an opportunity to position themselves through innovation. RFID is one of those technologies that are been sought after.

RFID has been a buzz word for the longest time. Walmart's initiative and its use by the DoD has been precursors to its potential uses across several industries, yet RFID still not a technology that has fulfilled the expectations for its widely adoption and use. The question remains: what is holding the adoption of RFID?

On my opinion RFID is following its course and a massive adoption will not happen on short period of time for the following reasons:

1. Cost and ROI: RFID technology has several advantages, but the price point for tags is not low enough. Pallet tagging has good business case, but item tagging is far aways and other more traditional technologies are more in use for AUTOID such as bar codes
2. Vertical application specific: RFID is more attractive to close loop applications and for process that require a more sophisticated control and visibility. For these cases RFID is seen as competitive advantage and most users are reluctant to publish its use and benefit.
3. Evolution RFID Technology: As RFID and its underlying technology evolves, potential users are on wait-and-see holding pattern, kick testing the tires of the technology. For instance the use of RTLS, and adoption of WiFi tags are making great leaps into the warehouse management and distribution.

It is for the reasons above that, on my opinion, RFID is not been widely adopted, yet I have the firm belief that the companies and organizations that do invest on RFID during these times of crisis could potentially see handsome rewards as soon as the economy picks up. Whether it is by deploying RFID in the warehouse or increase visibility on portals at distribution centers, RFID will enable business to be more efficient and enable a fast response to changing business environment. This is key to sustained growth for a business on highly competitive environment. Our current time enables customers to demand more because of the enhanced use of broadband communication. The Internet enables end users to check on global basis the products and services that best suits them with individual profiles. Even social sites like TWITTER can disseminate information about suppliers and their events to a wide audience of users. Therefore, it would be foolish, on my view, not to innovate business in likewise manner to enable better services and RFID is one of those potential technologies that do improve business response and efficiency in similar fashion.