Are you minding your intangible resources?
My Asset Tag asks, are you investing in the right places? When you think about your business, do you think about it in terms of what you have or what you do?
Does the “what you have” line of thinking include items like customer relationships, workforce, and trademarks? If not, you could be missing out on your greatest assets: intangible assets.
Tangible assets can include cash, property, and equipment; whereas, intangible assets might include things like goodwill, customer lists and brands. My Asset Tag states, “during the past 25 years, intangible assets have supplanted tangible assets as the key value drivers in the economy.” And yet businesses continue to focus on tangible assets. Perhaps because these are the things that can “make or break a company,” but I would argue without a good brand and workforce your company will not survive long either.
Big brands’ intangible resources
My Asset Tag gives several examples of big businesses market value: how Apple, Google, and Coca-Cola spend their money on tangible versus intangible assets and it is clear that the intangible assets are the bulk of their market value.
For example, Coca-Cola’s approximate market value is $179.9 billion. They have approximately $5.1 billon in tangible assets and a whopping $174.8 billion in intangible assets, and still companies like Coca-Cola are more concerned with money, equipment, and payments that are owed rather than the lucrative intangible assets.
What does this mean for your business?
Perhaps it is worth taking another look at how your business manages, funds, and assesses intangible resources. Which intangible resources are key in driving your business? What processes are in place for managing these resources? And how many resources are devoted to managing and expanding these valuable intangible assets in the future?
By taking stock of your resources and figuring out what you can do to utilize them better, you could be saving your business time and money.
