Safeguarding and Managing Company’s Intangible Assets…six essential requisites!

Michael D. Moberly   November 9, 2012

To effectively practice the necessary stewardship, oversight and management of a company’s intangible assets can, in my judgment, only begin, when those with the managerial and fiduciary responsibility for doing so…

• recognize precisely, not just generally, what intangible assets are…
• how they’re developed and evolve within a company…
• the economic fact that 65+% of most company’s value, sources of revenue, and ‘building blocks’ for growth, profitability, and sustainability lie in – evolve directly from intangible assets!

A business reality is however, experience suggests, absent the above levels of understanding and managerial commitment, it’s not just unlikely, it’s virtually certain, that a company’s intangible assets will go unidentified, unleveraged, under-utilized, or under-exploited insofar as facilitating company value, sources of revenue, and competitive advantages.

Other, equally adverse outcomes when intangibles are overlooked, dismissed, or neglected, their vulnerability to a host of asymmetric (global) risks and threats elevates accordingly to adversely affect their contributory value and functioning as sources of revenue and drivers of competitive advantage. Instead, they will be ready targets for compromise, i.e., theft, misappropriation, and infringement, etc.

The objective of course, is for the troika of management teams, c-suites, and boards to meet their fiduciary responsibilities to effectively manage and safeguard the intangible assets their company has developed, possesses, and/or acquired by…

1. being consistently and collaboratively engaged in – attuned to monitoring (the assets’) status, stability, sustainability, contributory value, and materiality.
2. recognizing how to position – align intangible assets to create value, sources of revenue, build competitive advantages, and strengthen relationships (build relationship capital) attract external investment, and/or leverage the assets as collateral in asset-backed lending proposals.
3. having the capability to distinguish and pursue the most prudent and lucrative strategies to exploit intangible assets for commercialization, monetization, or otherwise convert them into sources of revenue, value, and competitive advantage.
4. being current insofar as identifying, unraveling, and safeguarding a company’s intangible assets and assessing their relevance, contributory, and collaborative value to other company processes and/or transactions, (usually in the forms of intellectual, structural, and/or relationship capital).
5. consistently bringing business (strategic) clarity to intangible assets insofar as their creation, utilization, positioning, leveraging, and ways to extract value to reflect strategic business planning.
6. ensuring intangible assets are routine action (discussion) items on management team and board agendas insofar as (a.) identifying ways to increase their contributory/collaborative value (b.)  creating new sources of revenue and competitive advantages, (c.) enhancing brand, image, goodwill, and reputation, and (d.) taking action to mitigate asset risks.

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