Generating profit is now a game of out thinking your competitor and less about out producing him. The old way of doing business designs a product and sells it through a distribution channel to generate revenue. The new way of doing business focuses on managing your intellectual property to extract revenue from the entire market.
In the mid 1970’s the biggest value of the largest companies was tangible assets such as real estate, plants and equipment. Today, tangible assets only account for 30% of their value.
Study after study confirms that companies focused on managing their intellectual property significantly outperform their competitors.
A good example is General Electric. They’re value is not in their factories…it’s in their Six Sigma processes and management systems. Their competitive advantage is now built on what it knows and not what it owns.
Everyday your business creates and use intellectual property. Just take a look at how your business generates revenue and you’ll find it’s from your IP. Whether it’s creating new products or services, improving current ones, developing a customer relationship system, or figuring out ways to delivering them faster and cheaper, it’s all some form of IP.
But the management tools that worked in the tangible economy don’t work very well in the intangible economy. In fact, you’re tangible management tools are increasingly likely to fail as the markets continue to shift into an intangible economy.
Managing your IP is essential to your business’s survival and growth. IP management skills and becoming critical for every business owner and CEO. The internet is bringing many new IP management tools into the marketplace. But using these tools requires an internal shift in the way you do business.
Managing your IP successfully, means operating your business with right management tools and IP strategy. You can’t think of your IP only as a legal process. You must focus on activities that help to identify, secure, and use your IP to increase revenues and expand your business.
Rand Brenner is an IP professional whose passion is helping inventors, startups, and businesses of all sizes use licensing to turn their IP into income-producing products, services, and technologies. His decades of experience run the gamut from medical devices to food technology to consumer products. He’s licensed some of the biggest Hollywood entertainment blockbusters including the Batman Movies (1 and 2), and the number one kid’s action TV show, the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. Rand speaks about licensing and is a featured speaker at investment conferences, trade shows, colleges, and startup events. His first book, Hidden Wealth: The Money Making Power of Licensing was released in 2019 and is available on Amazon.com. He’s also a published writer with articles appearing in several prestigious trade magazine including The Licensing Journal, Intellectual Property Magazine, and License India. Rand also mentors at the Cal State Fullerton School of Business and Economics and is a judge for their startup business plan competitions.