Michael D. Moberly July 13, 2010
I start with the premise that management teams and boards have a fiduciary responsibility to routinely and objectively ask, ‘is their company properly positioned, insofar as possessing the expertise and skill sets, to identify, unravel, develop, bundle, utilize, and extract as much value as possible from its intangibles, while simultaneously protecting and monitoring risks to those assets’ value, sustainability, and materiality’?
As noted numerous times in this blog, the embodiment of managing and overseeing a company’s intangibles is the ability to sustain control, use, ownership, and monitor the value and materiality of a company’s (intangible) assets. If the latter does not occur, or fails, little else matters, because asset value may quickly go to zero!
An intangible asset officer (specialist) then, can benefit a company by…
1. Providing on-going guidance to business units for managing intangibles, i.e., extracting value, delivering competitive advantages, and developing strategic plans for measuring asset performance, monitoring risks, value, and materiality.
2. Adding predictability to business transaction outcomes, projected returns, and exit strategies when intangibles are in play, by assessing their stability, defensibility, and value sustainability.
3. Conducting due diligence (assessments) to sustain the competitive advantages the assets bring and more fully exploit asset synergies and efficiencies.
4. Reducing the probability that project/deal momentum can be stifled by recognizing and mitigating circumstances that can (a.) ensnare and/or entangle the assets in costly and time consuming legal challenges, (b.) undermine/erode asset value and performance, and (c.) adversely affect asset reputation ‘risk points’, e.g., regulatory compliance, product/service quality, and/or security breaches, etc.
5. Improving the valuing, reporting, and accounting of intangibles and integrating same in (a.) asset development, (b.) company governance processes, and (c.) specialized asset management initiatives, i.e., knowledge management and balanced scorecard.
6. Building an ‘intangible asset’ company culture that’s effectively aligned – converged with a company’s mission and business objectives.
7. Designing comprehensive organizational resilience (continuity, contingency) plans that encompass mission essential intangible assets to provide quicker recovery following significant business disruptions or disasters.
8. Defining asset ‘suitability’ factors, i.e., asset recognition, valuation separability, transferability, life cycle, and risks.
9. Monitoring intangible asset value chains, i.e., the inter-connectedness between the production, acquisition, and utilization of intangibles vis-a-vis their contributions to company value, revenue, and creating and sustaining competitive advantages.
The ‘Business IP and Intangible Asset Blog’ is researched and written by Mr. Moberly to provide insights and additional views for company management teams, boards, and employees to aid in identifying, assessing, valuing, protecting, and profiting from their intangible assets. I welcome and respect your comments and perspectives at [email protected].
