5.000.000.000 beeps every day
The bar code. A tiny, discrete tool that changed the world.
Every day, at least 5 billion bar codes are read over the planet.
From Alaska to Zimbabwe, from Australia to Mexico, different scanners read bar codes on all sorts of goods, produced by millions of companies of all sizes. They transmit them to thousands of computers of different kinds, using nmerous software programs designed by competing companies in order to manage shipments, storage, ordering, sales…and make people’s daily lives better.
This didn’t happen by chance. Nor by magic.
In order for such a thing to happen, one needs to bring together hundreds of stakeholders around the world: retailers and producers, clients and suppliers, hardware and software manufacturers, authorities… who would never be able to agree on a common solution without an organisation like GS1. Present in 108 countries. Working not for profit, but for the benefit of the community.