After spending the past several days at the Diebold Nixdorf Intersect event in Las Vegas, I’m back. And, what a difference a year makes.
You may recall that last year at this time, there were rumors swirling about financial difficulties at DN as the company struggled to complete the merger between Diebold and Wincor Nixdorf. DN senior management took the stage to candidly address these issues and ask for patience as the company worked to resolve them. This year the company is riding high, reporting good financial results in Q1 & Q2 of 2019 and now launching an entirely new line of hardware and software products. The swagger was back, and the energy carried over to the customers and partners attending the event
The overall DN event and launch theme of “Built to Connect; Built for More” was expanded into 6 key areas:
This approach from DN actually “intersects” exactly with where Paragon is headed in the marketplace, i.e. more of anything means more testing of everything.
Of course, we did talk about a lot of the current activities, issues and trends taking place within the payments industry
One of the important reasons for attending any event like this is to make connections, hear new ideas and expand your horizons. In addition to one-on-one conversations with customers and prospects at our booth and the usual table talk during meals, there were a couple of great presentations worth highlighting:
Moisés Peña Reyes, Vice President of Digital Banking at Banco Popular in Puerto Rico told a great story, weaving together the long-term digital journey of the bank (which he cleverly started in 1953) with his personal journey through life. He highlighted some of the innovative products and services the bank has put together since then and gave some very compelling statistics to illustrate their success. Very entertaining and inspiring.
Ben Hammersley – one of the event keynotes speakers - also delivered an entertaining and thought-provoking presentation which highlighted the difficulty in planning for the future. His basic premise is that trying to make plans more than a few months into the future is futile and counterproductive. He put words to what we have all been experiencing but may not have been able to conceptualize – that technology, business, culture and politics are now woven together into a single fabric. Change in one area immediately affects all the others. Ben also gave credence to Paragon’s philosophy since you can’t know exactly what to plan for (other than more change), you must put the tools and resources in place that will help you deal with anything. (My takeaway is that I no longer need to worry about detailed planning for 2020…)
Finally, I mentioned in my last post that instead of handing out the usual booth tchotchkes, the DN team arranged to help fill 300 backpacks with school supplies for underprivileged children in the Las Vegas area. I can report that this event within an event went very well. The folks from the Assistance League of Las Vegas were great and were very appreciative and gracious while donating their own time and hands to help the local kids. (I can also tell you 3,000 Bic pens – 300 sets of 10 – weighed 35 pounds and required a good-sized suitcase for transport to the event.)