Blog posts tagged Hungary

Reuse, Recycle, Reinvent

It’s holiday season in the UK, the time of the year every company dreads, but every employee looks forward to. For business owners it’s a bitter sweet time of the year. I am no exception having just returned from an excellent weekend break to watch the F1 in Budapest.

In between the trips to the race track I did what tourists the world-over do, which is to explore. During one trip with friends we discovered a fantastic bar called Szimpla (http://www.szimpla.hu/). The Szimpla ethos is brilliant. When a building is deemed unfit for purpose, instead of knocking it down they take it over and set up a bar. Szimpla, by my reckoning, is an excellent example of how to turn something old and unloved into a business that is both exciting and profitable.

In business there can be a huge temptation to simply consider everything that appears past its sell-by-date as completely irrelevant. I know I have done this many times in my career, sometimes to my cost. This is especially important in the tech market, which a colleague of mine often refers to as nothing more than a fashion show!

We can really learn from this. I am a massive advocate for innovation, always looking for the next big thing to invent or focus on. However innovation should be twinned with a focus on reusing and recycling what you already have. Especially in this economic climate, it just makes complete sense.

Ben Dyer is director of product development for Actinic