The Musings of Metis

Upon the Shoulders of Giants

The time comes in every organisation where the leader needs to step down and pass the reins to another. In Apple Inc. this event could not have had greater focus with the world’s business press headlining on the resignation of Steve Jobs as CEO.

What the event has highlighted is the importance of a company to ensure its brand and reputation are not tied up with one individual but have anthropomorphic characteristics with the company appearing as a “living, breathing thing”. The jury may be out on Apple, with the sudden drop in share value followed by a bounce back recovery. Was the recovery as a result of confidence in Tim Cook, Jobs’ successor or was it as a result of share acquisition during the dip? What is noticeable is the increase in shareprice of Apple’s competitors. Is this the time for them to gain valuable ground?

At Metis we insist organisations look at the association between the personal brand of their key people and the company’s own brand, between the individual’s know-how and how this impacts on the company’s reputation. By identifying exactly where the balance exists and identifying what drives real competitive advantage, we can help the organisation plan for continuity during transition and develop knowledge transfer to support the succession of future leaders.

Are your key people single points of contact? Will your brand competitiveness be impacted if they move on? Have you sufficient know-how transfer policies in place to mitigate the risk? What actions have you taken to ensure successful succession? What will the market make of it and what might be the impact on customers or revenues? Interested to know.

Some Say....

There are rumblings around the racetrack. Some say its protection of identity. Others, that it is the right of licence payers. We only knew he was called the Stig!

No longer.

The BBC had taken legal action to block publication by HarperCollins of the book which would unmask the faceless mystery driver and well established merchandising image.

The BBC claimed he had been bound by a confidentiality agreement and that revealing who he is would spoil viewers' enjoyment of the popular Top Gear programme.

However, after more than a day of private legal submissions, lawyers for HarperCollins emerged to say the case had concluded in their favour and the identity of the Stig was revealed.

So this case may raise questions in your business: is your brand and identity secure? Have you fully protected some of your core intangible assets by trade mark copyright or design right? How important is the identity to your company? Can you live without it?

I’m sure that the mystique of the Stig will continue, just look at the merchandising collateral and after all he had African, American and other nationality cousins. Didn’t he?

The Emerging Role of the CIPO

In a recent Webinar sponsored by IAM Magazine, "The Emerging Role of the CIPO (Chief Intellectual Property Officer)", thought leaders in IP, Ron Laurie, of Inflexion Point Strategy and Rob Sterne, of Sterne, Kessler, Goldstein & Fox concluded:

An increasing number of companies are managing IP as a strategic business asset and CIPOs will be the key executives for companies wishing to change from the perspective of IP as a cost centre to an IP as a profit centre model.

A key responsibility of CIPO’s is their relationship with the heads of strategic business units and their joint responsibility to assimilate the financial impact of IP on the unit’s value (including revenue) forecasts.

In posting comments on the Webinar on how to address these challenges on the IP Finance Blog, Neil Wilkof of Herzog, Fox and Neeman raised some critical challenges:

(i) The approach seems to have a patent-centric orientation, but what about trademarks, copyright and trade secrets?

(ii) The approach is focused on a large company environment but what about small and medium enterprises – can the structure be generalised?

(iii) IP could exist as both cost and profit centre – how do we account for both possibilities?

(iv) Where can we identify good practice that is operationally relevant and not phrased in headline terms?

In answer to these questions, Metis Partners suggest, in the first instance, all IP (extending to and including intellectual, relationship and structural capital) should be categorised, recorded and protected. This gives a solid foundation on which to identify the IP impact and engage those immediately responsible for its management in the strategic alignment process.

We agree, when big companies talk about IP assets they often really do mean patents, but patent poor SME’s can focus more on know-how, technical innovation or their investment in R&D as their “IP”. In both cases, and in answer also to question (iii) it’s crucial that companies align their IP with their business strategy – market intelligence is an asset in its own right – IP management offers competitive differentiation and agility in the market, protecting both market share and margins. There’s the common approach, and a strategy to use IP as a profit centre through exploitation in non-competing markets.

Finally, we humbly refer to our own approach, applied successfully across multiple sectors and companies, large and small whereby we break down IP from the business perspective into ten interlinked classes covering areas including IPR, Customer Relationships, Key Business Processes and Brand and Reputation. Defining the assets within in these business perspectives, makes it easier for business unit managers to a) accept, b) manage and c) develop the assets leading to increased revenue opportunities.