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Every purchase pays off....
Every purchase pays off. With Jarltech BOOST, you automatically earn valuable reward points for every euro spent on products from selected vendors. Redeem your points for a wide range of attractive rewards. Taking part couldn't be easier – there's no need to register. Points are credited to your account automatically with every eligible purchase, so your balance keeps growing every time you order.
This is how it works:
- Purchase products from selected vendors at Jarltech
- Earn points automatically for every euro you spend
- Log in to our online shop
- Click on Jarltech BOOST
- Redeem your points for attractive rewards
Don't have access to our online shop yet?
Simply get in touch with your Jarltech sales representative. He will be happy to help you set up your personal BOOST account.
Your first reward points are just one order away. Purchase products from selected vendors today, start collecting points and give your sales the boost they deserve!
Sell the CipherLab RK96 mobile computer together with the Full Value Pack until ...
Sell the CipherLab RK96 mobile computer together with the Full Value Pack until December 31, 2026 and offer your customers more service at a special promotional price!
With the Full Value Pack, your customers receive an upgrade from the standard 3-year warranty to a 3-year Premium Warranty for the RK96. But that's not all: the package also includes 3 years of ReMoCloud Express and one operating system upgrade at no additional cost.
Contact your sales representative today and make sure to add the Full Value Pack to every RK96 order!
* Promotion valid until December 31, 2026, while stocks last and exclusively for resellers in the EMEA region. The promotional price for the Full Value Pack is only available in combination with the purchase of part number clrk96-5 (CipherLab RK96) and is limited to one Full Value Pack per device
Getac has informed us of an adjustment to the list prices for selected Android-based products in their portfolio, effective from the 15th of July...
Getac has informed us of an adjustment to the list prices for selected Android-based products in their portfolio, effective from the 15th of July 2026. The adjustment results in a price increase for ZX80, ZX80-EX, ZX10, ZX10-EX devices.
Here is a breakdown of the relevant information for you:
- All new orders placed from the 15th of July 2026 onwards will be subject to the new list prices.
- Orders placed up to and including the 14th of July 2026 will be invoiced at the old list prices.
- Projects remain valid until their expiry date.
Please note that at the time this message was published, not all details regarding the SKUs and the exact new prices were yet available.
Do you have any questions? We will be happy to assist you with our expertise and service – let us know how we can best support you!
Seagull has informed us of an adjustment to the list prices for their portfolio, effective from the 1st of July 2026....
Seagull has informed us of an adjustment to the list prices for their portfolio, effective from the 1st of July 2026. This adjustment includes price increases of 5% for Subscription products and 8% for Perpetual products.
Here is a breakdown of the relevant information for you:
- All new orders placed from the 1st of July 2026 onwards will be subject to the new list prices.
- Orders placed up to and including the 30th of June 2026 will be invoiced at the current list prices.
- Project prices remain valid until the 31st of July 2026 and must be updated after that date.
Details of the affected SKUs and the exact new prices are available upon request from your sales representative. Do you have any questions? We will be happy to assist you with our expertise and service – let us know how we can best support you!
Datalogic has informed us of an adjustment to the list prices for their portfolio, effective from the 1st of July 2026....
Datalogic has informed us of an adjustment to the list prices for their portfolio, effective from the 1st of July 2026. This adjustment results in price increases that vary depending on product categories.
Here is a breakdown of the relevant information for you:
- Mobile Computers: 8–15% increase.
- Fixed Retail Scanners: 5–15% increase.
- Presentation Scanners remain unchanged.
- Barcode-Scanners
- Gryphon 4600 & GFS Modules: 3% increase.
- QuickScan, Gryphon 4500 & PowerScan remain unchanged.
- Accessories: 5–15% increase.
- Services (Repair, EOC & Spare): up to 5% increase.
What the price adjustment means for your order:
- All new orders placed from the 1st of July 2026 onwards will be subject to the new list prices.
- All open orders received before 1st of July 2026 and delivered up to and including 31st of July 2026 will be invoiced at the current list prices.
- All special pricing arrangements, such as demonstration offers and promotional deals, will be subject to the price adjustment effective 1st of July 2026.
- All orders covered by an active Price Exception (PE) issued before 1st of July 2026 and shipped by 31st of July 2026 will remain valid until that date.
- PEs issued before 1st of July 2026 for affected products will expire on 1st of August 2026. For any orders that remain open or undelivered after this date, a new Price Exception must be requested from Datalogic.
- PEs issued on or after 1st of July 2026 based on the new pricing will remain valid for their standard validity period.
Details of the affected SKUs and the exact new prices are available upon request from your sales representative. Do you have any questions? We will be happy to assist you with our expertise and service – let us know how we can best support you!
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»I’m on holiday« isn’t an excuse. It’s an organisational issue.
Let me be clear from the outset: I’m all in favour of holidays. We all need them – and we need to take them properly. No phone on the bedside table....
Let me be clear from the outset: I’m all in favour of holidays. We all need them – and we need to take them properly. No phone on the bedside table. No nagging feeling that somewhere, something is about to hit the wall. Better still if the business doesn’t even notice you’re away.
What has really frustrated me this summer, though, is how casually people seem to accept that business simply slows down because someone is on leave. Remove just one person from a chain of four and suddenly nothing moves. For two weeks. Sometimes three. The customer waits. The supplier waits. The project waits. That’s not a holiday problem. It’s an organisational failure.
You can tell an astonishing amount about a company from a single automated email. A good out-of-office message consists of two lines: »I’m away from … until …« – because, frankly, nobody cares whether you’re in Mallorca, at a rehabilitation clinic or on a training course; it makes absolutely no difference to the sender – followed by: »My deputy is [Name], available on [email] and [phone], and is authorised to make decisions in my absence.« That’s it. Nothing more is needed.
Then there’s the other version, the one you receive dozens of times a day: »If your matter is urgent, please contact…« That isn’t a handover; it’s handing the responsibility back to the sender. They now have to decide whether their issue is important enough to bother someone who knows nothing about it, has none of the paperwork and, most likely, isn’t authorised to make a decision. In plain English, the message reads: »I’m on holiday, so please don’t bother the company with orders or enquiries while I’m away.« The crucial word is authorised. A stand-in whose only contribution is to explain that they can’t tell you anything isn’t a stand-in at all.
My view on this isn’t particularly comfortable, but I stand by it: if you haven’t handed over your open tasks properly, then you haven’t earned your holiday. Not because I begrudge anyone time off, but because a proper handover is just as much a part of the job as writing a quotation or making a customer call.
And if there genuinely isn’t a suitable deputy, then in my view the deputy should be your manager. So be it, if that’s the only way to ensure that someone is actually able to make decisions. I have absolutely no problem when one of our department heads comes to me and names me as their deputy. Quite the opposite – that’s exactly the right instinct.
What doesn’t work is when several employees take leave at the same time without proper coordination and, all of a sudden, nobody is able to move a project forward. If that doesn’t bother you, perhaps you’d be happier in the civil service. In a company that depends on satisfied customers, it matters a great deal.
In an ideal world, there wouldn’t be an out-of-office message at all. A colleague or manager would simply read your emails and reply to them. That’s how we did things at Jarltech for 30 years. We don’t always manage it in every single case anymore, and I’ll gladly admit that some of our own out-of-office messages still need attention. But I remain convinced that, with us, nothing gets left behind. With some other companies, I’m afraid I’m not so sure.
And now to the real point – one that actually has very little to do with customers.
When you’re packing your suitcase, which feeling would you rather have?
Option one: »Ha! Nothing works without me anyway.« It sounds important, but in reality it’s a badge of failure. It also means checking your inbox three times a day out of guilt, and never really switching off.
Option two: »A colleague is covering for me during what is usually a quieter period. Customers and suppliers are looked after. Nothing is left waiting. And in a few weeks I’ll do exactly the same for them, so they can go away just as relaxed.«
The second option isn’t just more professional. It’s far more restful too.
That’s why I don’t see holiday planning as some tedious administrative task for HR. I see it as one of the most important leadership responsibilities of the year. Anyone who arranges proper cover, clarifies decision-making authority in advance and makes sure that three key people aren’t all away at the same time is practising management in its truest sense: making sure the business continues to function without them.
Operational readiness comes first – in August just as much as it does in November.
So remember this: »If nothing works without you, that isn’t proof of your importance. It’s proof of your company’s poor planning.«
Distribution dynamics: The one big customer – blessing, addiction, risk
Today, I'd like to make things a little more personal. This isn't about vendors, pricing, or logistics....
Today, I'd like to make things a little more personal. This isn't about vendors, pricing, or logistics. It's about something I've witnessed time and again over the past thirty years – and something that almost always ends the same way.
It starts off as a success story. A reseller wins a major end customer. First comes a project, then a follow-up order, then a framework agreement. Revenue grows, the relationship deepens, and before long, that single customer accounts for half the company's business. From the outside, it looks like hitting the jackpot. From the inside though, it's an addiction.
Because, almost unnoticed, something begins to happen to the business. It reshapes itself around its biggest customer. The best employees work almost exclusively for them. Internal processes become their processes. The warehouse fills up with their products. New customer acquisition quietly fades into the background – why chase new business when the existing business is booming? Every single one of these decisions is perfectly rational on its own. Taken together, however, they create a company that can no longer exist without that one customer. And the deceptive part is that, the entire time, it feels like growth.
Then comes the big day – and it arrives in many different disguises. The customer is acquired, and the new owner brings in their preferred supplier. The purchasing manager who has known you for fifteen years retires, and their successor wants to make a name for themselves with a competitive tender. The customer runs into financial trouble – and because they're your largest outstanding debtor, they take you down with them. Or, more simply, they become so large that they decide to buy directly from the manufacturer. None of these scenarios involve bad intentions. They're all perfectly normal. And when one customer represents half your revenue, there's nothing you can do to prepare for any one of them – except prepare long before they happen.
Let's run the numbers. A reseller generates €5 million in annual revenue, €2.5 million of which comes from a single customer. Let's assume an average gross margin of twelve percent – that's €600,000, with €300,000 contributed by that one account alone. By now, the reseller has already built its cost structure around the total business volume: staff, warehouse, facilities, vehicles. If that customer disappears, €300,000 in contribution margin vanishes almost overnight, while the costs remain exactly where they are. You might survive a few months – maybe a year if you're fortunate. Building replacement customers of that size, however, typically takes three to five years. That gap is exactly why so many stories that begin with »We've landed a fantastic key account« eventually end with »Unfortunately, we had to close the business.«
And because this series is about honesty, I'll admit something else: we know this challenge from our own experience – just one level higher. Distributors can become too dependent as well, particularly on a single manufacturer whose brand represents a significant share of total revenue. We, too, must actively ensure that our portfolio is broad enough to withstand unexpected shocks. Excessive concentration isn't a reseller problem. It's a business problem. The only difference is whether you address it while business is thriving – or wait until the fever has already set in.
So what should you do? Take excellent care of your major customer, of course – they're a gift. But at the very same time, invest the same discipline in everything else. Win a few new customers every year with real growth potential. Build a second market segment. Develop a second pillar of your business – maintenance contracts, professional services, or another product category that generates recurring revenue instead of depending on individual projects. And keep one simple KPI under regular review, perhaps once every quarter: What percentage of my revenue comes from my largest customer? If that number keeps increasing year after year, your business isn't becoming stronger. Your dependency is. It just happens to be wearing the same suit as growth.
So remember this: »A customer who generates half your revenue is no longer just a customer – they've become your silent shareholder. Only without any liability.«
Opinion: Why nobody wants to sit through another PowerPoint presentation
I'll tell it like it is: I can't stand PowerPoint slides anymore. Not because I'm too old for them, but because I've simply seen too many....
I'll tell it like it is: I can't stand PowerPoint slides anymore. Not because I'm too old for them, but because I've simply seen too many. Forty slides per meeting. The agenda slide. The »Who We Are« slide. The obligatory world map with office locations. Three bar charts. And, at the very end, »Thank you for your attention« – as if everyone hadn't stopped paying attention ninety minutes earlier. And I know you feel exactly the same way. In fact, everyone does. Nobody says it because everyone keeps creating them anyway.
The slides themselves aren't the problem. The problem is what they've become: a teleprompter. An experienced professional stands at the front of the room, supposedly an expert on the topic, turns their back to the audience, and reads aloud what everyone in the room could have read themselves – only much more slowly. I find myself doing the math: twelve people in the room, ninety minutes – that's eighteen working hours. The actual takeaway would have fit into an email with five sentences. When someone reads slides to me, what they're really saying is: »I don't trust either my content or myself enough to survive an actual conversation.«
And now we've reached the next stage of escalation: AI-generated presentations. Forty beautifully formatted slides at the push of a button. Elegant icons. Flawless corporate design. It looks like work – but it isn't. In the past, a polished presentation at least sent a signal: someone had invested time, which meant the meeting mattered to them. That signal is gone. Once polish becomes free, the polish loses all value. Today, I don't judge a presentation by how attractive it looks. I judge it by whether anyone actually thought before the meeting. And surprisingly, that's easy to spot. AI-generated slides are smooth, generic, and interchangeable. You could replace the company logo, and nobody would notice. That, in itself, is the verdict.
The absurd thing is that, in our industry, the alternative couldn't be simpler. We sell hardware. Things you can actually touch. If someone wants to show me a new scanner, bring it along, switch it on, and let me scan something with it – instead of showing me twenty slides about its »scan performance«. A live demonstration, even if something goes wrong, tells me far more about both the product and the person presenting it than any chart ever could. And for everything that can't be demonstrated physically? Give me a single sheet of paper with the five numbers that actually matter – and then let's talk. Really talk. Ask questions. Challenge each other. Take the risk that the meeting might go in an unexpected direction. That's the moment when a meeting turns into a business opportunity.
The best decisions of my career were never made because of presentations. They came from conversations. From factory visits. From the moment someone could explain – without a single slide – why their product was better, while also honestly admitting where it wasn't. Slides can hide nearly anything: weak arguments behind impressive charts, uncertainty behind animations, a lack of substance behind apparent completeness. A conversation hides nothing. Perhaps that's exactly why so many people avoid having one.
So here's my request to everyone who meets with us – manufacturers, partners, service providers, and yes, even our own colleagues: bring substance, not a slide deck. If you absolutely need slides, make it five – and don't you dare read a single one aloud. Show us the product. Give us the numbers. Tell us what you want from us. Then let's have a conversation. You'll discover that meetings become shorter, outcomes become better, and nobody misses the world map with office locations. Absolutely nobody.
So remember this: »If all you want to do is read something to me, send me an email. If you want to sell me something, talk to me.«
