European Sign Federation
Dear Members of ESF, colleagues and friends,
In 2024 we were confronted with situations and challenges at a level we barely knew before: wars, climate change, disasters and sensitive elections were everyday news. Some of these had an impact on human relations which led to polarisation. This had also impact on our professional life. Clients became more assertive , companies regrouped, raw materials got forbidden or became more expensive and good staff became scarce or difficult to keep. However in the automobile world skilled labour is no longer scarce, our european companies have a hard time and are facing tough decisions, ‘to be or not to be’. Paradoxically 2024 was an interesting year. In space technology we were surprised with successes and setbacks, like rocket boosters returning tot heir launching platforms, ever smarter drone technology, visits to planets and unplanned long stay of astronauts in space due to flaws in their means of transportation. Month by month our atmosphere becomes like a full parking lot for numerous satellites. At the same time we realise how dependent we have become on modern technology such as undersea cables and we learn to be more careful about threats from the internet.
In the signworld we notice optimism among companies that experienced growth. Sometimes this is the lucky result of a merger of their customer with another company in the same field and sometimes the growth was preceded by commercial efforts. The latter cannot be achieved with working from home alone, no matter how popular it has become. All skills under the same roof is hardly possible anymore. Some companies have specialized in custom or series jobs with full time use of specialized workers and expensive machinery, enabling to sell quality products at reasonable price.
Other companies, often in other countries, have lower wages and still others have a combination of both but cause more transportation costs. Ultimately all these products need to be installed.
One needs a good network for this and a short communication line with qualified project managers.
Who are those installers? In european countries companies are classified in groups with a code that indicates a profession. It is called a NACE code. The government and tax officials use this code to benchmark on a level playfield, the customers use this to make sure the profession is done well by skilled workers of a correctly registered company with whom they plan to cooperate. In various european countries exists a NACE code for manufacturing and installation companies, based on history where companies did both activities by their own staff. Nowadays this is often separate. Yet we notice sign companies registered under NACE codes for advertisement agencies, sales of promotional items, construction work, maintenance for buildings etc. In some countries installers of companies registered under more than 20 different NACE codes are doing signwork. However, many times this is about electrical products that need connection to the grid and we would expect only qualified installers to handle this. Therefore we at ESF believe there should be a unique NACE code for sign installers and in 2025 we will strive for it’s creation at european and national level. We will also continue to work on other projects like european sign standards and education. Our teams look forward to cooperate with you.
I wish you all can enjoy a healthy and successfull 2025.
