This week, Gemalto became part of Thales, It’s the culmination of a phenomenal journey over the last 13 years (and longer, for longstanding Gemplus and Axalto employees), and the starting point for a new stage in our development and the kind of work we’ll be doing.
But amongst all the change, many things will remain very familiar to Gemalto staff, customers, suppliers and partners.
As I look backwards – but mainly forwards, I wanted to reflect on some of the positive changes – and on some of the things that will remain unchanged – as we enter this new era.
Three ways we’ll stay the same:
1. Our vision for digital security remains unchanged as part of Thales. Thales is onboard with our vision and we feel that it will only be accelerated by being part of the group. Our expertise in digital identification and data protection will remain but on top of this we gain experience in Sensors, AI, Big Data. This will help us to gather more data, transfer it securely and make more sense of it in real-time. This will allow our customers to take more intelligent decisions.
2. Our focus on innovation – Gemalto and Thales, and now Gemalto as part of Thales, share a common passion for R&D and customer-focused innovation. Our engineers and researchers are curious and focused on the latest agile practices.
3. Our customer-centric approach. Taking care of our customers, innovating in ways that will make a difference to their bottom line, and so on, is core to the ethos of the combined entity. There’s no question that integrations are busy times, and even amongst the change and the process of bringing the two companies together, a top priority will be our work to ensure that our customers don’t notice what’s happening behind the scenes.
Three ways we’ll change:
1. Our size/reach will shift dramatically. Gemalto will move from being a 15,000 person company to part of an 80,000 person company. Our reach expands from 47 to 68 countries. This gives us access to more people to design, build and sell innovative solutions in more countries around the world.
2. A world of new business ideas. The markets each business are present in will trigger opportunities for collaboration and partnership, as Thales customers benefit from direct, combined access to Gemalto thinking and solutions and vice versa. An example of this is drone traffic management where we can link our expertise in IoT and Thales’ avionics expertise.
3. Boosted R&D capabilities to bring them to market. Our direct investment in R&D grows from €265m to > €1bn and we’re now part of a group with more than 30,000 researchers and engineers. We have many new ideas for new solutions combining technology from Thales & Gemalto that wouldn’t have been possible before.
This change is a positive one for investors, customers, employees, suppliers and more. The combination of our business with Thales’ digital ambitions will help us accelerate our strategy.
The future’s bright – it just isn’t orange anymore.
