post Wednesday April 16, 2014
Last week, Smarter-Companies founder Mary Adams was speaker at the Mircosoft WinDays in Croatia. WinDays14 Business gathered businessmen and entrepreneurs who discussed business opportunities for Croatia from the European Union perspective. Key topic was sustainable, smart and inclusive growth as defined in the EU 2020 strategy. Discussion items were conditions that need to be fulfilled to encourage growth: innovations, changes within educational system, climate/energy, development of digital society and fighting against poverty. At the business days Mary lectured during 2 sessions about Smarter-Companies.
The event is the largest regional conference about business and technology, with more than 1,500 participants. The audience varied from IT experts and entrepreneurs to developers, businessmen and members of state administration.
Mary’s lecture was titled IT + IC (intangible capital) = Innovation. Currently, we transition away from the industrial era to a new era where knowledge and digital assets are driving changes in what we do and how we do it. There are enormous opportunities for innovation. These opportunities are available to just about everyone because IT is ubiquitous and powerful. But IT alone does not drive innovation. To do that, you have to build an ecosystem around the IT. We call this ecosystem “intangible capital”. The two combined together creates the potential for innovation. Mary gave a bunch of examples of how the right combination of IT and IC drives exciting innovations.
IC is basically organizational knowledge. Smarter-Companies breaks it down into 4 categories because knowledge behaves differently and is managed differently depending on where it lies:
Every organization has a unique combination of these knowledge resources. It is really about how the organization is set up to create value for its stakeholders. If it works well, a company will achieve innovation, growth and performance, which both lead increased reputation and corporate value.
Right now, we are at a tipping point in the digital economy. Computing power is so cheap and so accessible. So, virtually anyone can start a business. However, the technology is not enough. Mary advises to focus on a problem you know or understand, which does not have to be exotic. Some of the biggest companies today are solving simple problems. The key is to pull together the right IC ecosystem to solve the problem. Solving a problem is how we convert generic knowledge to valuable knowledge – and how we yield tangible results from intangible capital.
Mary spent a lot of time in the area of measurement and stated that there is something wrong about how we measure companies today. It is all from the inside out – using financial and quantitative metrics that ignore the intangibles. Instead, we should be measuring from the outside in – using stakeholder feedback to measure how well a company is doing. Stakeholder value creation is key to the success of every organization. This is about customers but also about employees, partners, your community. You need all of them to grow and create a sustainable business. The Smarter-Companies solution is a great tool to measure this and to drive growth, improve performance and enhance and protect the value of the enterprise.
Mary: “Where do I see us in the future? At the heart of a Smarter-Companies ICounting movement to measure companies’ resources and operations from the outside in”. IPR Plaza is excited to spread these Smarter-Companies solutions together with Mary and her team to organizations in the European market!
For more information, please contact Mary Adams or IPR Plaza at:
Email / www.smarter-companies.com
Looking for more great content? Subscribe to our RSS feed to get articles as soon as they are posted.
