Innovation

When a person wants a new credit card, they go to the bank and ask for it, but what they don't know is what happens behind the bank’s curtain, and how these processes are managed. And this is when Logikard C.A. joins the game. This company achieves different innovations in the technological field. This company is dedicated to the production and building of credit and debit cards, ID cards and more, which implies a constant innovation process to keep up with the emerging necessities of this market. Logikard’s two largest clients, Visa and Mastercard, are constantly demanding more and more.

Logikard’s avant-garde vision made them the only ones in Ecuador with the necessary technology to furnish the demand of international markets for a long period of time, meaning that since the beginning, the business activities and the product itself was innovative (they were the first movers). Hence, Logikard basically created a market in Ecuador.

Logikard has been, again, innovating as technology advances. A clear example of this is the innovation of chip cards in 2014 and contactless cards in 2019, which avoids the necessity for the consumer to insert a credit card into a terminal, eliminating possible credit card cloning risks. In short, Logikard is always in need of constant technological updates, which is why the continuous innovation achieved by this company is offering access to new payment methods to banks in Ecuador and other countries.

Inspiration

When Frank Nankervis (CEO of Logikard C.A.) was young, he worked at “Amex." After that, he made his postgraduate thesis about financial services in the banking sector. Mr. Nankervis saw the opportunity to make a difference, realized that there were not many competitors, and also Ecuador was growing economically and socially, so this would be of great use in the future.

Overall impact

This company affects society as a whole through business operations and internal activities (working conditions for example). The company gives its customers new ways to make payments and conduct transactions involving money, as Mr. Frank said. As we saw in the overview, this company sells the cards directly to other companies (business-to-business service), and then these clients sell them to the rural population. Considering most of the population of Ecuador live under rural conditions, this is a huge help to the country, as Logikard contributes by providing more opportunities and means to pay and transact money (which is scarce in these areas).

Also, their internal activities help to accomplish Sustainable Development Goals 5 and 10 by having the same rights inside the company to all their workers; as well as participation in recreational activities for all. These activities create a big impact in the way Ecuadorian society works because they employ workers in non-technical work, but who are still meaningful to this company (like cleaning, security, manufacturing of cards, etc). Most of these workers are rural people, meaning that this circumstance contributes to fighting unemployment in this area. Furthermore, as we will see on social and environmental impact, equal employment for both men and women is another way to accomplish the goals mentioned at the beginning of the paragraph.

We wanted to explore how these technologies can be beneficial to society, focusing on Ecuador, where this company operates. The rural population in this country has two key problems: unemployment and lack of means for money payments. This company indirectly affects the development of rural society because they provide a business-to-business service, meaning that although, their direct customers are the ones who sell these cards to the rural population; this sale would not be possible without Logikard first fabricating the product.

Business benefit

Two main benefits from the company's activities are gaining a competitive advantage (over its competitors) and creating an overall beneficial social financial impact.

“This company differentiates from their competitors since it is the smallest of the market, and much more flexible than its competitors…” said Frank Nankervis. The company sells new innovative ways of payment to anyone but also targets small clients to gain more flexibility than its competitors. Furthermore, Logikard allows these small companies (their clients) to grow, as they offer them modern products to sell to their clients (urban and rural population) to finally complete the social impact.

Finally, the financial impact we can see within this company is basically more of a social financial impact. Their activities affect tax payments, create jobs (economic growth), exports to countries including Colombia, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Bolivia, Paraguay and Perú; and of course, bring foreign exchange to Ecuador.

Social and environmental benefit

Logikard impacts society through its business operations both internally and externally. This is done by giving customers new ways and opportunities of making payments and transactions involving money. Also, its activities allow the increase in national Ecuadorian production, since it is a company native from Ecuador.

According to Mr. Frank, The Sustainable Development Goal 3 (Good health and well-being) is accomplished because “(Logikard) complies with the safety and health regulations imposed by the government. At the same time, we always care about the wellbeing of our employees, for this we offer health insurance, we do periodic examinations to all personnel, and also we offer health analysis of: blood and vision among others.” Goal 5 (Gender Equality) is reached within Logikard “We comply with gender equality with a distribution of 50% men and 50% women of our employees.” Lastly, in Logikard, according to Mr. Frank, “We work with people with disabilities. We provide growth opportunities to this section of our employees with facilities to improve themselves. Obviously it is always more expensive to pay for everyone's growth, but there is an exception for special cases. These refer to: a person in a wheelchair due to limited mobility, arthritis, and people who are blind.” This targets Sustainable Development Goal 10 (Reduce Inequalities).

The activities they do, but mostly the importance of them and the fact that people do not notice this, was the main reason why we chose Logikard to be the company to analyze in this work. These activities are all linked with the values this company tries to respect in their processes and working conditions. Respect and equality are main values that Logikard C.A. fights for and can be seen on the day to day basis on business activities. These are the reasons why this company achieves the SDG´s mentioned before.

Interview

Frank Nankervis, CEO