article3 technology&business

8/9/2019 Article3 Technology&Business

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CITYJET JOURNAL

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6

SEPTEMBER 2012


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\Britain is a nation ofbrainy

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people. We are innovators

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who come up with great ideas

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and are ready to take them

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,forward. These days we

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l: export iil~elligent technologies to

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but need the IT solutions we offer.

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usiness.

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changing woi'Jd; it is:t~~.hpd·tisei

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d~, owledge that IS ln the,gE~,atest

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J d~in'a~d, along with an,a~ility-to

envisage ~hat may bep~eçléd in

the future,

It's exciting stuff. It can also seem

.daunting to a business used to doing

things the,?ld way. Is it really

necessary tobe intelligent in the

modern marketplace? How can a

firm learn the new tricks to stay

ahead of the game?',

There are sorne basics that any

business would be -&isenot to ignore:

. • Technology is updating àll the

time. Stay intèrested,

• Innovation irnproves efficiency and

thar means greater profits.

• Not clued up? Talk to someone

who is: there is help out there.

• Forget the fear, new technology is

there for everyone: move rorward

with it.

,

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Ideas are huge sellers

Who wants to come up with the big

plan that will make a fortune

overnight? Everyone looks at

Facebook and wishes they had

thought of it first. Or Coogle. The

world had not imagined either 10

years ago. Now both are part of

everyday life.

Yet the smaller stuff can really

make a difference too. Julian White

is MD of Cambridge company

Skalene. One of their current

projects involves working with gene

sequencing, expected to have

enormous implications for us all in

the future. Cambridge physics

graduate Julian and his co-founder

Martin Horrod are liaising with

Liverpool University, with

sponsorship from Unilever.

He said: This is huge new

technology. We have come up with

an intelligent way to process raw

materiaL It cornes down to the fact

that companies can have a half-a-

million dollar machine standing

useless because the samples they

need can't be prepared fast enough.

Using microfluidics, our

researchers have found that they can

slash the time it takes to purify and

prepare host DNA. At the moment

it can take up to a week to extract

DNA from an organism such as a

bacterium and prepare it for

sequencing. Skalene's new techniques

can reduce this to a few hours. Put

simply, we take DNA from an

animal and then quickly get it to the

point where it is ready to be put into

the machine.

We find solutions for the end user

because we are in the business of

finding fast-moving, high-

technology answers to problems so

that companies can move forward.

Julian started Skalene four years

ago after selling his start-up

company, Cenapta, to Canadian

investors. The sale helped him and

Martin fund their new enterprise.

Yet he is very aware that elever ide as

are one thing, but the business still

has to stay firmly on track.

He added: ln these times of

recession you have to be fairly

sanguine. To quote Michael

Schumacher, 'If you want to finish

first, you first of all have to finish'.

You have to be careful that you are

relatively disciplined. You have to be

sure you can coyer costs but you

must also be ready to take every

opportunity forward. Working

closely with your clients is crucial.

Intelligence is exported

On a larger scale, ARM Holdings

employs over 2,000 people. They

specialise in computer chips,

designing and licensing intellectual

property, known as IP. Also based in

Cambridge, ARM is the world's

leading IP company, having shipped

over 20 billion chips and sold 800

licences to more than 250 companies.

A spokesman said: We have

offices around the world including

design centres in Taiwan, France,

India, Sweden and the US. We

license IP to a network of partners

who pay for the licence and a royalty

on every chip.

The success of ARM shows that

technology can be a very high earner

indeed and the rewards will continue

to flood in through royalties on the

product. The lesson here is that an

idea need not be a one-off earner. It

can continue to produce revenue into

the future if handled carefully.

No need to fear

Coing it alone with a good ide a can

seem scary. Alastair Crawford,

founder of 192.com, was inspired by

advice from his father. He would tell

me 1 didn't need to find security in a

job, 1 could make work for myself.

His brainwave came about when

he looked at a telephone directory

one day and realised that technology

was moving fast and an online

version would be a winner. Today 10

million people use the website every

month, last year bringing in ••


3/3

revenue of l5.5m for the company,

which has 40 staffbased in Fulham,

West London.

Alastair came up with his scheme

after dropping out of two universities

where he had planned to study

accounting. He said: Knowledge of

accounting and law is valu able when

starting a business but sometimes it

can make you look at things in a

blinkered way.

ln the early days he struggled

to get access to the information he

needed but managed to launch his

directory in 1997 and has continued

te grow, despite setbacks along the

way. He is happy to let others know

what is needed to turn a dream into

reality.

He said: If your idea is good and

you are failing, you are not pushing

hard enough. Success is 1

inspiration and 99 perspiration.

nnovation can eut costs

Ideas are born of necessity and

nothing matters more than keeping

costs down. Sorne small businesses

spend a fortune on phone calls but

until now there seemed to be no

alternative. However, latest

technology allows firms to use VoiP,

or Voice over Internet Protocol,

which uses an internet connection to

make telephone calls. It has seen the

number of fixed-line phones fail by

1.5 million in the five years to 2010

and the trend is still downwards.

Calls between staff are free and

savings of more than 20 are

common. Cornish business Total

Energy Solutions took the VoiP

route three years ago.

Director Alastair Carnegie said:

We were working on two sites and

the phone bill was becoming

ridiculous as we were making so

many calls between them.

learning urv

If yOufidea is good and

you are failing you are not

pushing hard enough.

Success is 1%inspiration

and 99% perspiration

He opted to instal l a multi-user

service from a company called

Gradwell and is pleased he did,

adding: The line is very c1ear and

customers don'r notice the difference.

Small businesses like ours find VoiP

ideal because we are able to make

calls efficiently without running up

huge costs. There are sorne great

ideas out there. They don't have to be

yours, but looking into them is well

worth the time taken. Spend a

moment to check what is available

and save, money.

e

ven the big boys need to

look forwàrd

Everyone-h,';s heard ofIBM, As a

global group of more than 430,000

employees, it was always seen as a

safe bet , but Chief Executive

Stephen L€Onard reveals that IBM

had a nea~=death expérience in the

early Nineties. Ir all boiled down to

the fact that the company had too

. -

much reliance on mainframe

~ f

computers. Just in

time,

they made

the switch

to

softwàr~ and earlier

this year shà;h hit a rec~rd high','

having risen 20 in 1Zmonths,

Now workersat IBM develop

middleware ::'· the_~secret sauce,

according to Mr Leonard, that ties

hardware and software together. The

moral? Even l~rge concerns can .be~

caught napping. Stay alert to new.,

opportunities or doze to disaster.

CITYJET JOURNAL

38

eas in un likely places

Bright sparks look where the rest of

us fear to tread. Take

ROOf

tiles.

Who would imagine they could be a

way to conserve energy and bring

down bil ls? Yet in the new Westfield

Shopping Centre in London they are

doingjust that. A company called

Pavegen is using the kinetic energy

produced by anything that moves, in

this case shoppers' feet on floor tiles,

to generate renewable electricity.

Scientists are predicting that kinetic

energy could be powering our lives

in many other ways before long.

The need to find c1ever solutions

does not stop there. Dirty water can

be cleaned using plants, which is

already happening to great effect in

Singapore. Over there, 30 of the

total water demand is met by new

technology, and this is expected to

rise to 50 by 2060 - unless

sornething even better cornes along.

\ So~e orthe new ideas in the

pipeline include using bacteria

within concrete to help it heal

cracks. We may also be able to

harness the ability of algae to use

carbon dioxide and light

to

create

heàt in our buildings. There's more. _

Active pàints and surfaces on

exteriors can rem ove carbon dioxide

and pollutants

ta

render them

harrnless, says Dr Rachel

Armstrong of Greenwich University ..

These 'can do' approaches and

technologiesare ernpowering.

S9'e has a very valid point.

H~ving theright attitude, §eeking,

a new answer an old problem,

is what British business has been

~

doing for decades,

IrÎs

not justelever to come up with

/lk-.~ .

new ideas. Being.aware of what is out '-.:.

fké;~and firîd(iÎg a place for.it.within

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: : a . ~siness' not onlyrnakes sense, it' is ,

the smartest way forward. 'V

SEPTEMBER 2012

article3 technology&business

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