Threat or Opportunity?

“What about these Small Modular Reactors?”

“Are they a threat to your business?”

These are questions Kate was recently asked when being gently challenged during a conversation with someone she met through Lancaster University. She was asked this because a lot of our work comes from the nuclear sector.

With innovation comes risk; risk that the innovation will fail, but also risk that the innovation will be so successful it will leave what came before it, redundant, and no longer needed.

Like Technologies exists because innovation was happening, electronic companies were creating new products and solutions and at the same time stopping making or supporting older ones that were ‘no longer part of their long-term plan’.  You’ll know that in places such as a nuclear power station, it is simply not a case of replacing old with new. There are regulatory, safety and cost implications plus environmental concerns.

Obsolescence does not ever go away simply because we move on. Innovation is evolutionary and everything that was new once, will become legacy.

To help reduce the amount of industrial waste that ends up in landfill sites, we’ll continue to need companies and people with the right skills that can service and repair instead of replacing.

This content originally appeared on Lancaster and Morecambe Chamber of Commerce website as part of their Chamber Chat series with Ambassador members. https://lancaster-chamber.org.uk/chamber-chat-with-kate-houlden/