Intangibles Mismanagement and the Current Crisis - The Diigo Meta page

• 04 Oct 08
  

  Bertrand Duperrin

  As we end this tumultuous week, I have a few thoughts on the relationship between intangibles management and the current crisis.\n\nHow bad intangibles management got us into this mess…\n\nA financial company's principal intangible assets are its people, its management, its processes, its brand and its customers. While all of these are important and none can be understood in isolation, process deserves special attention in this case. Processes are the way that a company institutionalizes its collective knowledge and experience. The unique processes of a financial company include those for processing transactions and managing risk.

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  • Most businesspeople continue to focus on financial analysis. If the balance sheet and income statement look good, the reasoning goes, we should be in good shape. But financial results are about the past. The future comes from those intangible assets I mentioned earlier: people, management, processes, brand and customers. In this crisis, bad management and bad process pulled down the brand, the financials and, in some cases, the whole company.
  • How will American businesses find their way out of this mess? It certainly won’t be by building factories or new machines. The answer will come from the use of technology and knowledge-those same intangible assets (people, management, processes, brand and customers) can and will be leveraged to improve existing businesses and create new ones.
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  • • The successful companies will re-tool themselves. They will learn that intellectual capital is the new factory. That factory is filled with technology-enabled business processes that leverage the brilliance of their people and their customers. They will see their businesses as networks that bring together the best resources inside and outside their corporate walls. They will find new ways to measure, manage and monetize their intangibles. They will know that good intangibles management will lead to innovation and growth.

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