Experience Matters is partnering with the Universities of South Australia, Western Cape (South Africa) and Lethbridge (Canada) to research the management of Intellectual Assets.

Together with Physical Assets (land, plant and equipment), Human Assets (people) and Financial Assets (money), Intellectual Assets (data, information and knowledge) are deployed to undertake an organisation’s activities. 

More efficient and effective deployment of these resources enables the organisation’s activities and processes to be conducted faster and better, resulting in the quicker delivery of products and services that are of a higher quality for a lower cost with the benefits of reduced risk, improved competitive position and higher return on investment. 

Anecdotal evidence suggests that whilst Physical, Human and Financial Assets are well managed, few organisations have a genuine Chief Information Officer with ultimate responsibility and accountability for the deployment of data, information and knowledge and the tools to manage them, including an Information Chart of Accounts, an Intellectual Assets Map or a Taxonomy. 

The purpose of this project is to determine whether organisations have Intellectual Assets that are of value to their operations, how they’re managed and if not why not, the benefits of efficiently and effectively managing data, information and knowledge and to develop the frameworks or methodologies to enable organisations improve the governance and management of their Intellectual Assets to deliver business value to their organisations.

The four stages of the project are:

• Stage 1 – The Issue;
• Stage 2 – The Cause;
• Stage 3 – The Benefits; and
• Stage 4 – The Solution.

Stage 1 – The Issue has been completed.  It consisted of:

• Research of the global literature on the governance and management of Intellectual Assets; and
• Consultation with C-level executives of large Australian organisations in both the private and public sectors to investigate whether senior management recognises the existence of Intellectual Assets of intrinsic business value to their organisations and whether they are managed as an asset. 

Our findings indicate that:

• Every organisation has Intellectual Assets that are of value to its operations;
• The governance and management of Intellectual Assets is an area to which little attention has yet been paid; and
• Few organisations manage their Intellectual Assets with the same rigor as they manage their other scarce and valuable resources.  Where Intellectual Asset management programs exist they seem to be compliance driven, however, there is a lack of a value driven response to the types of Intellectual Assets investigated in this project.

Stage 2 – The Cause commenced in February 2011.  This stage will identify the reasons for the disconnect between the acknowledgement of the existence of Intellectual Assets and their active management.  It will be conducted through consultation with senior executives in Australia, Canada and the United States of America.  We have been invited to present our findings from Stages 1 and 2 at conferences in Sydney in December 2010, Toronto in April, Las Vegas in June and Nice in October 2011.

Stage 3 – The Benefits will be undertaken in the second half of 2011.  This stage will quantify the benefits to organisations of efficiently and effectively managing their information and knowledge.  Our previous research, conducted with some of the world’s largest companies in the Defence, Mining and Oil & Gas sectors, indicates that the tangible, quantifiable benefits of improving the management of Intellectual Assets is conservatively worth $20,000 per person per year.  In Stage 3, the research team will conduct a detailed examination of eligible organisations to understand each organisation’s data, information and knowledge practices, develop a vision of the desired state and determine the exposures and risks faced and the improvements and benefits available.  The research team is currently accepting registrations of interest from organisations willing to participate in Stage 3.

Stage 4 – The Solution will attempt to design frameworks for the governance and allocation of accountability required for effective Intellectual Asset management.  These frameworks will assist organisations to manage and drive business benefits from the assets that typically remain poorly deployed.

For more information about the research project, please email James Price.