Latest news with #ICs
Travel Weekly
05-05-2025
- Business
- Travel Weekly
Remodeling success: First in Service tweaks the way it supports ICs
Jamie Biesiada Fernando Gonzalez, CEO of New York-based First in Service (styled F1S), looks at his agency as one that essentially exists to serve 130 other companies. Those 130 companies are F1S's independent contractors (ICs) and their teams, and they were top of mind when F1S decided to embark on a "remodel." The agency, Gonzalez said in a recent interview, already has a strong foundation and a well-defined culture. But he recognized the ongoing need to introduce new technology and review processes and procedures, hence the remodel. "Like any remodel, you have to first take into account what it is that we need and what it is that 130 of our business units need, so that we can properly prioritize and invest in the right things," he said. That process is a little more complex because F1S not only serves leisure clients, but also corporate clients and clients in the entertainment world; music is the entertainment vertical's bread and butter, but F1S also serves clients in television and film production, fashion and sports. F1S in-house support for ICs F1S has been going through the process of understanding the needs of its ICs, and something has become abundantly clear: They are busy, and they need extra help. F1S experienced 23% year-over-year growth in 2024, and that trajectory continues into 2025. "From a people perspective, and I think from an after-hours perspective, it's giving them more hands," Gonzalez said. "Allowing them to have more individuals, people, that can serve their clients." F1S is bringing its after-hours support in-house, Gonzalez said. The in-house part is key, because it brings an inherent layer of trust that the service for their clients will be at a high level. "The second phase of that is having enough staff that, if they need to take a break, they can," he said. "Whether it's because they're not feeling well one day or because they deserve a vacation." The double-digit growth has been a boon, Gonzalez said, but his priority is ensuring ICs get proper support to keep doing their job well. "The margins are great, but how long can we run that sprint?" he said. Organic growth at F1S Gina Gabbard, chief strategy officer at F1S, said a lot of the agency's growth in 2024 was organic. F1S's ICs have grown their own businesses, leading to overall growth. ICs focused on entertainment have also begun diversifying, Gabbard said. "Instead of just doing a tour, a lot of the artists will want to take a few days off, maybe in between cities or they have a break," Gabbard said. "Instead of the advisor not handling that, now we're seeing them take that on." The same thing is happening on the corporate front, she said. ICs traditionally focused on corporate are beginning to offer leisure services to those same clients. F1S has a global footprint, and it is realizing growth abroad, especially in Mexico and Canada. While it only has five advisors in Europe, Gabbard said those advisors saw 400% growth last year. Groups in all of F1S's verticals — leisure, corporate and entertainment — are also on the rise, contributing to overall growth.
Yahoo
11-02-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
LoRa Alliance® Releases 2024 Annual Report
LoRaWAN® Expanded Market Leadership with Strong Global Traction LoRa Alliance 2024 End of Year Report FREMONT, Calif., Feb. 11, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The LoRa Alliance®, the global association of companies backing the open LoRaWAN® standard for the internet of things (IoT) low-power wide-area networks (LPWANs), today issued its 2024 End of Year Report. The report provides a compilation of the LoRaWAN's advances and LoRa Alliance achievements throughout the year that contributed to LoRaWAN emerging as the only LPWAN positioned to support Massive IoT. This year's report also showcases LoRaWAN's prominence as an essential and irreplaceable technology supporting global digital transformation. Key trends identified in the report include: Industry analyst firm Omdia projects that LoRaWAN will help drive LPWAN connections beyond 3.5 billion by 2030, reinforcing its leadership position. As of June 2024, over 350 million end nodes and 6.9 million gateways with LoRa ICs have been deployed worldwide, further supporting the expansion of LoRaWAN networks.1 LoRa Alliance members are self-reporting strong growth during 2024. For example: Actility reported 4M connected LoRaWAN devices with a CAGR of 50+%. The Things Industries reported 2.7 million connected devices with 50% year-over-year growth; and ZENNER reports more than 9 million devices have been deployed. Backed by continued enhancements to the LoRaWAN standard, non-terrestrial network (NTN) LoRaWAN connectivity is available from three commercial service providers, putting LoRaWAN ahead of competitive technologies in terms of NTN coverage. LoRaWAN continues to experience strong growth across private and enterprise deployments, with brands like Starbucks, Volvo, Chevron, Chick-fil-A, Logitech and many others using the technology. The Alliance has continued to strengthen and enhance its certification program to make it easier and more cost-effective to certify, including launching the LoRaWAN Web Certification System, enhancing the LoRaWAN Certification Test Tool and offering a new self-certification option. '2024 was in many ways a watershed year for digital transformation and broad adoption of Internet of Things, which bridges the physical and digital worlds,' said Alper Yegin, CEO of the LoRa Alliance. 'We believe that digital transformation is necessary for humanity's evolution, with immense potential to help people and the planet while driving economic growth. Over the past few years, LoRaWAN has cemented its position as a foundational and market-leading LPWAN technology. Backed by our global ecosystem, we are making Massive IoT a reality and are rapidly scaling deployments. The future is bright for LoRaWAN and as an Alliance we will remain focused on expanding our ecosystem, continuing to educate the market and build awareness, as well as ongoing technology enhancements to the standard to accelerate adoption.' Additional highlights from the 2024 End of Year report include: Beecham Research issued three reports in 2024 about LoRaWAN adoption and use in Smart Cities, Smart Buildings and Smart Logistics, validating the standard's strengths in these markets. The Alliance advanced several LoRaWAN standard publications, with work in progress on: GS1, device migration and device profile management, interface standardization for gateways and application servers; relay enhancements, mobile gateway development, NTN satellite development, crypto-agility, and updated regional parameters and technical specifications. The Regulatory Working Group actively supported efforts to harmonize the regulation for satellites in the spectrum bands currently used by terrestrial LoRaWAN networks. The Alliance engaged on new Work Items and Task Forces to support using PKI for simplified device provisioning, plug-and-play device onboarding, low-power network discovery, network capacity and device and solution makers, all with the objective to make LoRaWAN easier to deploy. About LoRa Alliance®The LoRa Alliance® is an open, nonprofit association that has become one of the largest and fastest-growing alliances in the technology sector since its inception in 2015. Its members closely collaborate and share expertise to develop and promote the LoRaWAN® standard, which is the de facto global standard for secure, carrier-grade IoT LPWAN connectivity. LoRaWAN has the technical flexibility to address a broad range of IoT applications, both fixed and mobile, and a robust LoRaWAN Certification program to guarantee that devices perform as specified. The LoRaWAN standard has been deployed by more than 170 major mobile network operators globally, with connectivity available worldwide. More information: LoRa Alliance®, LoRaWAN® and LoRaWAN CertifiedCM are licensed marks. MEDIA CONTACT:KiterocketStephanie Quinn, LoRa Alliance PR, +1 480 316 8370, squinn@ 1 A photo accompanying this announcement is available at in to access your portfolio
