Michael D. Moberly August 19, 2015 ‘A blog where attention span really matters’.
Readers, there is absolutely no dispute to the globally universal economic fact that today 80+% of most company’s value, sources of revenue, and ‘building blocks’ for growth, profitability, competitiveness, and sustainability lie in – directly evolve from intangible assets! So isn’t it quickly approaching the state of being a no-brainer to acquire an operational familiarity with an organization’s intangible assets, because, by doing so, better business decisions are all but sure to follow!
It’s just entirely insufficient now for management teams to (a.) merely know what intangible assets are or which one’s their company – employees have developed, (b.) utilize, or perhaps worse, (c.) succumb to conventional accountancy path of lumping all internally developed intangibles together (indistinguishably) as goodwill.
It’s now essential, if not a fiduciary responsibility to:
- sustain control, use, and ownership of IA’s.
- know precisely how the IA’s contribute to a company’s value and create sources of revenue.
- understand how to utilize, leverage, and position the assets to extract as much value and competitive advantage as possible.
- exercise effective stewardship, oversight, and management of the IA’s and consistently monitor their materiality and contributory value.
By achieving this level of operational and financial familiarity with IA’s, numerous enterprise wide multipliers can follow, for example
1. Add predictability to business transactions when intangible assets and IP are in play by being able to assess the stability, fragility, defensibility, and sustainability of the assets through an IA focused due diligence.
2. Elevate probabilities that projected returns will be achieved, competitive advantages will be sustained or enhanced, asset synergies and efficiencies will develop, and transaction exit strategies affirmed
3. Achieve effective convergence of IA accounting, reporting, and valuation by recognizing their linkages to:
- knowledge management initiatives.
- IP development and safeguards.
- the balanced scorecard.
4. Reduce probability of costly, time consuming, and momentum stifling legal challenges and disputes regarding IA’s by foreseeing circumstances that can ensnare and/or entangle IA’s that will impede a transaction, or erode or undermine its projected synergies, value, competitive advantages, or overall performance.
5. Build an IA focused organizational culture that contributes to
- recognizing, producing, and sustaining control, use, ownership, and value of IA’s.
- elevating organizational awareness to accelerate the pursuit of adverse IA issues, i.e., ownership, value, infringement, misappropriation, theft, etc.
6. Develop a comprehensive OR (organizational resilience – continuity-contingency) plan that encompasses an organization’s key ‘contributory value’ IA’s that will facilitate quicker and more complete recovery following a significant business disruption.
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