Adapting R&D to new markets
JAN 19, 2010
DOI: 10.1063/PT.5.024013
FT.com : The connection between hard-up truck drivers in Russia and Edinburgh-based Canongate Technology which makes beer flow-sensors is not immediately obvious.Canongate has adapted the sensors it produces to a new use: instead of monitoring the level of beer in brewery tanks its technology is now also used to detect whether people driving trucks across Russia are siphoning off fuel for illicit sale.Canongate’s move is part of a trend known as “soft diversification,” in which companies use specific technological know-how as a platform to set up new operations in a related field.While this way of entering new fields is not especially new, the number of companies adopting it is growing, as more businesses seek to exploit ownership of their existing technologies.
© 2010 American Institute of Physics
