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.
