Getting Paid Indirectly for Your Knowledge
For all the attention that we have paid to this point to direct sales of knowledge, many companies still get paid just for providing physical products. No services. No knowledge product. But don’t be fooled. These companies (or at least the ones that survive) get paid for their knowledge as well.
This is very obvious in an iPod, which is a highly innovative delivery system of an on-line music service. Apple broke ground in many ways when they created the iPod including:
- The physical design of the product itself
- The creation of an on-line delivery system for the music and content loaded on the product
- The licensing arrangements with key content providers to convince them to make their product available through Apple.
But it is also true for a company like Wal-Mart, which is known for the low cost of its merchandise. This cost advantage reflects its innovative:
- Retail information technology
- Supply chain management
- New efforts in energy use and impact
Time will tell whether Wal-Mart’s understanding of the business opportunity presented by energy/environmental sustainability will also broaden its perspective on community and employee stakeholder relations.
Even companies getting paid directly for knowledge products or services have a lot of their value embedded in their internal processes that are not even visible to the client. Think about the systems at UPS and Fedex. There are truck route planning systems, package tracking systems, air hub systems and many others that support the underlying service which is moving the package from one point to another. Customers of these companies are buying the quality and consistency that these systems ensure.
The truth is that a huge amount of the value of knowledge in most organizations is not isolated and individually identifiable—it exists as a system. The systems provide efficiency, quality, process improvement and innovation.
So, when thinking about how your own company gets paid for your knowledge, you have to consider this “bundled” value in addition to direct knowledge products.
From Intangible Capital: Putting Knowledge to Work in the 21st Century Organization
