Lawyers Undervalue Their Services

The New York Times reports today here that economic hard times are putting pressure on high-priced lawyers.  Some ask whether it is time to end the practice of the billable hour. This is a really interesting question.

The “best” lawyers bill hundreds of dollars per hour. In the Times article, one firm is reported to regularly charge $800 per hour for their most senior partners. Even these firms (or especially?) are apparently accepting fixed fee arrangements with some clients.

This trend would actually be a great thing for the legal industry, but maybe not for the reason that you might think. Read more

Gartner on Investor Communication

The McKinsey Quarterly recently ran an interview here with Gartner CFO Christopher Laford. In the interview, he explained that:

When our new CEO, Gene Hall, joined, we established a long-term financial road map as a key element of our investor communications. We told our investors how we were running our businesses and where we thought we could drive performance over the long term-key measures, like revenue growth by business segment and margins.

And when we did that, we also identified the two or three metrics, for each segment, that would help investors understand Read more

Merger Blogging

Wells Fargo and Wachovia started a merger blog at the first of the year. They are doing a good job of it, mixing history with practical announcements. The tone is genuine and newsy. They seem to be getting readership judging from the number of comments.

Based on all the bad things that often happen during integrations, this will be an exciting effort to watch. You wonder if they are doing a similar effort internally. In the intangible economy, your customers and your employees are more important than ever–and this kind of communication is a good strategy.

Intangible Valuation Continues to Fuel Controversy

There is a great discussion here on the blog of IAM Magazine (IAM stands for Intellectual Asset Management) on the question of intangible value. Editor Joff Wild put out the question whether the declining stock market implies that the value of intangibles has disappeared. A spirited debate has followed with 12 comments to date. Here are some of the ideas that I included in my comments.

The stock market intangible gap: The gap between the stock market capitalization of companies and their tangible book value has narrowed due to the severe downturn in equity prices. Read more

Car Makers Should Go Intangible

A recent article in my local paper on the challenges facing our town’s only auto dealership recounted the story of Bonnell Ford, a dealership founded in 1925 and still owned by the same family. I always knew that their first building was on Main Street in a small storefront. In those days, the dealership displayed a few samples and took orders for individual cars. According to the article, the days of the huge lot of cars were kicked off when foreign manufacturers, especially the Japanese, entered the market.

The Japanese had a much longer lead time to ship cars and needed to find a way to compete with Detroit’s faster turn around. So they started inventorying cars and offering the opportunity for consumers to drive off the lot in a new car. Domestic dealers had to follow suit. Bonnell moved to a big lot on the edge of town.

This strategy is part of the problem in today’s downturn. The manufacturers and dealers are left with a huge investment in inventory that isn’t moving. The large lots are obviously not the root of today’s problems but it makes you think. The time may be ripe for a shift back to small lots. Using technology, automotive dealers could create an incredible experience on site where consumers could learn about their options in the way they would on the internet but also see and touch a real example of the car that interests them–a larger version of an Apple store.

Leaders in this space could tout the lower costs and smaller footprint of their operations. It’s a strategy built on intangibles–technology, networks, personal connection. It is a way to free dealers from a high-cost operating model and pull the manufacturers into a new era.

Accounting for Intangible Assets

The Australian Accounting Standards Board recently published an interesting discussion paper here on “Initial Accounting for Internally Generated Intangible Assets.”  Comments on the paper will be accepted here through May 15, 2009.

The paper addresses the peculiar state of affairs that exists in accounting today Read more

The Winning Vision

Last Tuesday, the U.S. inaugurated a new president. Challenging times created the opportunity for an unlikely candidate, Barack Obama, to step into this role. Throughout his campaign and in his acceptance speech, he outlined a new vision for the role of his country and his approach to government.

But his vision was not his alone. The best visions-in government and in business-are Read more

Reporting in the FTSE 350

I recommend that you read Joining the Dots, a white paper by David Philips of PWC (you can find the paper and an accompanying video here). The paper summarizes a study of the narrative reporting by the largest 350 public companies in the UK. It puts forth the thesis that narrative reporting Read more

Filed Under: IC Measurement
Tagged: David Philips, FTSE 350, IC Factory, Joining the Dots, Knowledge Assets, Narrative Reporting, PWC, S&P 500

Capital is Consensus

January 19, 2009 by Mary Adams · Leave a Comment 

A great follow up to my post on Bananas and Industrialization is in this amazing post from Umair Haque How to Be a 21st Century Capitalist. He explains that:

20th century capitalism, in other words, marginally valued pure financial capital too highly, while marginally valuing human, natural, social, and cultural capital at zero - or, at the limit, negatively.

He goes on to say that “capital is consensus” which Read more

Filed Under: IC Management
Tagged: IC Factory, Industrialization, Relationship Capital, Reputation, Umair Haque

2009 the Year of Measurement?

January 16, 2009 by Mary Adams · 1 Comment 

Jonathan Salem Baskin posted a report on a session he hosted at the Consumer Electronics Show. I met Jonathan at the Intangible Asset Finance Society (IAFS) and had some interesting conversations around branding and the value of brands (his area of expertise). The three main conclusions of the session Read more

Filed Under: IC Measurement
Tagged: Advertising, Consumer Electronics Show, Intangible Economy, Jonathan Salem Baskin, Marketing, Measurement, Social Media

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