Managing Intangible Assets with Knowledge Scorecard

The use of knowledge scorecard in intangible assets management is a common practice in companies that aim to create value from their knowledge-based assets.Knowledge Management (KM) is the science of enabling organizations to identify, represent, create, or enable adoption of their intellectual assets. Since 1995, this discipline has been widely recognized as a formal science. The number of professional and academic journals that has been dedicated to KM is a manifestation of this development. In reality, a significant number of established companies have dedicated a lot of their resources to KM, often as a component of their “Human Resource Management” and “Information Technology” departments.Typically, programs under the KM initiative are connected to certain organizational objectives, like achievement of competitive advantage, innovation, developmental processes, and improved performance. The science of KM can be viewed in different perspectives namely; organizational, techno-centric, and ecological. Firstly, the organizational perspective looks at how the knowledge processes will fit the existing organizational structure. The techno-centric perspective, on the other hand, focuses on the enhancement of knowledge or growth of knowledge through technology. Finally, the ecological perspective looks at the interaction of people, knowledge, and environmental factors as vital parts of a complex adaptive system.The evolution of KM as a science has also brought forth a change in the priority of managers. Before, managerial control is centered more on financial measures, like earning capacity and profitability. Today, managers acknowledge the significance of intangible assets or knowledge in the attainment of long-term goals of companies. In today's modern world, employee knowledge and specialized skills are as important as financial capital. In the management of these intangible assets, managers have come to see the viability of using the Balanced Scorecard approach in KM.Introduced by Robert Kaplan and David Norton, management graduates of Harvard University, the Balanced Scorecard Approach is now widely accepted as an effective means of assessing or evaluating performance or output. In this case, the same principle had also been applied in the management of intangible assets. So effective is the approach that many management experts consider it more effective than traditional performance evaluation measures, which focus more on financial measures.According to Kaplan and Drucker, there are certain factors of a company that need to be evaluated to attain strategic success. They mentioned four general areas of strategic management activities that need to be prioritized. Among which are learning and growth perspective, business process improvements, customer loyalty, and financial management. Learning and growth perspective looks at how an organization's internal customers or employees could be trained or managed in such a way that the interest of the organization will be upheld. Business process improvements, on the other hand, aim to eliminate certain steps or processes that lead to waste. Customer loyalty refers to the satisfaction that end customers get when utilizing a company product or service. Lastly, financial management refers to all financial data and measures that are needed to keep track of projects, profits, and cost estimates.The BSC approach is so versatile that it can be tailor-made to suit knowledge management. Surely, a knowledge scorecard will be instrumental in the achievement of short-term as well as strategic organizational goals.