Impinj Among Fast Company’s 2024 Most Innovative Companies
Fast Company recognized Impinj for its innovative Impinj Authenticity solution engine, which helps address counterfeiting by ensuring everyday items are genuine.
Impinj was named among Fast Company’s 2024 Most Innovative Companies, ranking #4 in the enterprise category. We are thrilled to be recognized for our Impinj Authenticity solution engine, which was designed to allow companies – from manufacturing to pharmaceuticals – to verify that any individual item they make, transport, and sell is authentic.
Why item authentication is important
Counterfeiting and gray market activities are a massive and growing economic, social, consumer, and public health issue around the globe. Beyond presenting economic risks to global enterprises and markets, counterfeiting also impacts consumers’ wallets, their health, and their everyday lives.
“Counterfeit products cost the global economy over $500 billion a year,” according to the US Chamber of Commerce. “As of August 2022, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has made almost 17,000 seizures of counterfeit goods worth an estimated $2.4 billion, had the goods been genuine.”
According to sources cited in Forbes, “The total amount of counterfeit goods sold each year would make counterfeiting at least the tenth largest economy. It's also responsible for 2.5 million lost jobs globally.”
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Beyond the economic impact, counterfeits can potentially harm people and the environment.
The US National Institute of Health (NIH) found that “counterfeit medicine proliferation is a more significant public health threat than diseases they purport to cure.” The NIH also reports that “a big challenge in environmental terms is the pollution from pharmaceuticals which in the case of counterfeit medicines turns to be even more serious as their actual composition (active ingredients and excipients) may often be unknown. Another aspect of this issue is the environmental pollution from dirty practices by an unregulated criminal activity involving potentially toxic chemicals.”
At minimum, counterfeits drive significant losses for businesses (whether through lost sales or labor costs required to manually or visually authenticate items) and create inconvenience for consumers. At their worst, they are an active threat to everyday lives. But when identified early, counterfeit products can be prevented from reaching consumers.
Impinj Authenticity solution engine
The Impinj Authenticity solution engine is the first real-time, wireless, long-range, high-speed, end-to-end cryptographic authentication offering that helps prevent counterfeits, ensure product safety, and secure the supply chain. With its speed, accuracy, and reliability, the Impinj Authenticity solution engine allows brands to cost-effectively authenticate products—including retail merchandise, automotive parts, and medications—along every step of the supply chain, from manufacturing through shipping, customs, store inventory, point-of-sale, and returns processing.
Solving this problem is increasingly critical for global economic prosperity and for consumer trust in the goods they purchase. The Impinj Authenticity solution engine is a valuable tool because it is cost-effective, flexible, scalable, and reliable, and it can be paired with other essential components of a larger, systemic response to counterfeiting and gray markets.
Protecting people, items, and the environment
At Impinj, our mission is to connect every thing. The Impinj Authenticity solution engine is one example of how we are tackling challenges with global reach and ensuring the protection of items, people, and the environment.I’m thrilled that our work has been recognized for its enormous potential to prevent the harms that counterfeit goods present, and I’m incredibly proud to be part of the team that brought this solution to life.
Learn more about the Impinj Authenticity solution engine, about RAIN RFID, and our award-winning innovations and team.
- Article tagged as:
Tuesday, March 19, 2024
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jeff Dossett
Former Chief Revenue Oficer
Jeff Dossett oversaw the Impinj go-to-market department, including sales, partner development, and marketing.
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