Source:
Scotland on Sunday, 12th December 2004.
Well of intellect untapped in Scots companies
BILL MAGEE AND TERRY MURDEN
THE Scottish Executive, which is spending £3m on Europe’s first project to exploit the "intellectual assets" left untapped inside businesses, has admitted it will prove tough to get much payback from its investment.
At the launch of the Intellectual Asset Centre in Glasgow last week, deputy enterprise minister Allan Wilson said: "It does represent a challenge. I hope that Scotland’s businesses, both large and small, will consider the real benefits it will bring them."
The centre is a joint initiative by Scottish Enterprise and Highlands and Islands Enterprise, and is aimed at building competitiveness in the knowledge economy.
One of the market’s foremost exponents of exploiting commercial intellectual know-how, Gordon McConnachie, has agreed to become chairman.
The Scot has advised both the UN and the European Commission on intellectual assets and capital management. He said: "It was a brave move by the executive to fund the centre.
"It’s still very much an embryonic area but the big US companies have been focusing on proper management of intellectual assets for some time.
"Also, in Singapore and Hong Kong they are taking giant steps towards transforming their economies into ones with a knowledge-base. In Europe, meanwhile, Finland and Denmark are both making substantial steps towards knowledge economies."
First-time statistics from the not-for-profit centre show that Scots firms are proving intellectually challenged when it comes to exploiting their corporate expertise.
The centre claims businesses are losing out to the tune of billions of pounds by not getting the best out of their own company assets.
Almost three-quarters of 1,000 firms surveyed had never heard of the term "intellectual assets". Only 8% had taken steps to safeguard their assets.
ScottishPower boss Ian Russell, recently appointed chief executive of the centre, claimed that IA had been an underplayed card in the past, yet the gains to be achieved "are too significant to ignore", he said.
The centre estimates that within five years £4bn of value could be released into the Scottish economy, out of about £20bn of unrealised value identified.
Intellectual assets are often intangible and can include a company’s brand, employee know-how, trade secrets and technical information.
The centre aims to develop the supply and demand of intellectual asset management for client firms as well as influencing national and international policy.
Separately, Scottish Enterprise is to launch a competition in the new year to seek out the best ideas for spinning-out intellectual property from company assets. Up to a dozen finalists will receive intensive and rigorous support from the SE high growth start-ups unit. They should be capable of achieving notional valuations of £5m within three years.
Andy McNab, director of the unit, believes there are latent assets in companies that may even be more valuable than their core business. |
