Tangible Strategies for Intangible Assets [Hardcover]

John Berry (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 30, 2004

Intangible assets such as brands, patents, and intellectual capital are the new measures of corporate wealth. But one can't manage what one can't measure. And while assigning accurate valuations is a stringent requirement under new FASB accounting guidelines, it is far from easy.

This book explains the latest thinking and techniques in measuring and managing intangibles. Innovative management disciplines like Balanced Scorecard are explained, while real-world examples from Amazon, eBay, and other firms demonstrate how companies are getting maximum advantage from all their intangible assets.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

Techniques for measuring, managing, and enhancing the value of a firm's intangible assets

While guidelines now exist for the financial valuation of intangible assets, managing them for maximum value is new territory for many organizations. Tangible Strategies for Intangible Assets provides an insightful, in-depth examination of methods for measuring and managing the value of intangibles in an organization and maximizing opportunities for realizing their full value.

Management consultant John Berry introduces six critical intangible asset classes--information technology, intellectual property, knowledge, brand, customers, and employees--and demonstrates specific management techniques for each class that offer real potential to deliver value to an organization. These asset classes form the foundation for a detailed analysis that reveals such principles as:

• The nature of intangible assets in today's transforming global economy--what they are, what they are not, and what they mean to you
• Top-to-bottom strategies for treating employees as a driver of value and improving retention to capture that value
• Open Market Innovation (OMI) techniques for enhancing your firm's financial performance through the sale and acquisition of intellectual property

Intangible assets are today's drivers of corporate wealth creation. Tangible Strategies for Intangible Assets reveals what companies must do to gain a stronger understanding of how these assets interact with other assets in an organization to provide unique sources of competitive strength while providing specific management techniques to assist in leveraging their powerful value-creating potential.

What is the financial value to a pharmaceutical manufacturer of a promising yet still-developing vaccine, or an important right-of-way to a municipality, or even a highly skilled chef to a Thai restaurant? Each would be considered an intangible asset, with a fluid and intrinsic value; yet each is virtually impossible to measure, manage, and maximize over time without a set of powerful tools managers can apply.

Tangible Strategies for Intangible Assets integrates the latest thinking and practical techniques on this important question into a comprehensive guidebook for understanding and deriving value from a company's intangible assets. Combining thought-provoking insights with hands-on recommendations, it examines key topics such as:

• Three methodologies for measuring your workforce as an asset instead of a cost and then leveraging that asset for financial and strategic objectives
• Methods for creating a fluid rather than rigid organizational structure to enhance knowledge management and sharing
• Techniques for improved measurement of the value of information technology
• How the cutting-edge Knowledge Object Theory^TM can increase sharing of knowledge among your employees and the subsequent value of that knowledge

In today's increasingly idea-based economy, ownership of intangible assets can account for 90 percent or more of a company's market value. But because they remain relatively ill-defined as assets, and because widely accepted measurement and management systems are still emerging, intangibles are too often managed inconsistently or not at all--and fail to live up to their value-creating potential.

Tangible Strategies for Intangible Assets reviews how leading organizations including Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard, Convergys, and others are creating the systems and methods that will soon be the standard for accurately measuring and managing intangible value. It provides today's most reasonable and balanced exploration of the intangibles question and provides solutions designed to improve the competitive position of virtually any organization, regardless of its industry or position in that industry.

About the Author

John Berry, principal of according2jb.com, Inc., is a consultant and inventor of EV+2^TM, a process-driven, software-based management methodology designed to help businesses drastically increase the amount of value captured from information technology investment. He is a former columnist at InternetWeek and Computerworld.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 325 pages
• Publisher: McGraw-Hill; 1 edition (November 30, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0071412867
• ISBN-13: 978-0071412865
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.2 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,314,253 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Strategy insights..., August 24, 2005

By 

Voice of Experience - See all my reviews

This review is from: Tangible Strategies for Intangible Assets (Hardcover)

If you are looking for a book about valuation of intangible assets this
isn't it. However, it's an excellent guide to understanding what intangible
assets are and what innovative management techniques are available to
managers to extract maximum value from them on a day to day basis. The
examples are interesting and real-world and the ideas are expressed
clearly. The chapter on knowledge management, for instance, is really far
out. Knowledge Object Theory is bleeding edge stuff and a fascinating read.
Too bad it's so new that there are few real world implementations. Still,
it's very thought-provoking stuff. If you're interested in gaining greater
clarity about leveraging value from all the important assets before you,
this is a great place to start.

4.0 out of 5 stars Tangible Strategies for Intangible Assets, August 21, 2005

By 

JSD From CT - See all my reviews

This review is from: Tangible Strategies for Intangible Assets (Hardcover)

I had heard of intangible assets and knew superficially what they were, but this book gave me a level of insight about the nature of intangible assets and how they can be managed that I had never considered before. Any manager should read the entire text, identify the most underutilized or underappreciated intangible asset in his or her own organization, and then champion the implementation of a pilot project using the techniques in this book. You might be pleasantly surprised by the results.