外文翻译--无形资产计量.DOC

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1、外 文 翻 译外文题目 Intangible Asset Measurement 外文出处 Accountants Today 外文作者 Bernard Marr 原文：Intangible Asset MeasurementBernard MarrIn order to keep tabs on how your organizations intellectual capital is performing, you must ask all the right questions. Bernard Marr explains.Its impossible to navigate a bu

2、siness to success without the necessary performance information to guide your strategic decision-making. It would be a bit like driving your car blindfolded: you cant see where youre going and you cant see your instruments to check your speed. The problem is that, when it comes to the invisible asse

3、ts in our businesses, this is the scenario we are facing. We lack meaningful performance indicators for tangibles such as the information an organization holds, its image and reputation, its core expertise or its customer relationships. All of them can be vital to the businesss current and future pe

4、rformance, but, if we havent got relevant performance information, we cant adequately measure them. Collectively, these intangible assets are referred to as intellectual capital.Research has confirmed that, although most executives agree that intellectual capital is critical to the continued success

5、 of their businesses, their methods of measuring and managing these invisible enablers of performance are either poor or non-existent. This finding was the impetus for the creation of a Management Accounting Guideline called “Impacting future value: how to manage your intellectual capital.” The guid

6、eline was published jointly by CIMA, the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants and the Society of Management Accountants of Canada with the aim of giving managers practical tools and techniques to identify, measure, manage and report intellectual capital. It provides detailed guidance c

7、overing the following five steps of successful intellectual capital management: -How to identify the intellectual capital in your organization.-How to map the intellectual capital and assess its strategic importance.-How to measure intellectual capital.-How to manage intellectual capital.-How to rep

8、ort intellectual capital.I will concentrate on the measurement problem and offer some insights about how to make intellectual capital measurable. For the full tool kit, please refer to the Management Accounting Guideline.Performance indicators are useful only if they provide meaningful and relevant

9、information. Sadly, typical performance measurement practice for intellectual capital can be described as follows:- Identify everything that is easy to measure.-Collect and report the data on everything that is easy to measure.-End up scratching your head and thinking: what the heck are we going to

10、do with all this performance data?To avoid this trap, you need to identify the intellectual capital elements that are relevant to your business and its strategy, and only then should you think about measuring them. We often have a misconception that intellectual capital is difficult or impossible to

11、 measure. This is not the case; it is probably easier than what you think and many measurement methods are available. But before we go into any more detail on this, lets first define what exactly we mean by intellectual capital. The organizations own more Intellectual assets such as human resources,

12、 knowledge bases, research and development and patents than traditional assets such as plant and machinery and equipment. By deploying intellectual capital to create competitive advantage and by obtaining knowledge-creating resources from across the world, the firms have successfully created competi

13、tive advantage for themselves. Knowledge-base strategy is a response that connects the special characteristics and measurements of a company with local advisability in which they work for it. In the sophisticated and searching world, the organizations must be so clever and strong to use some opportu

14、nities including the combination of new explorations and available knowledge use, sharing and supporting knowledge, intellectual capital flow management.Together with physical and financial capital, intellectual capital is one of the three vital resources in an organization. It includes all intangib

15、le resources that contribute to the delivery of the organizations strategy. These can be split into three groups: human capital, relational capital and structural capital (see Panel 1). The main sub-categories of an organizations human capital are, naturally, its peoples skills and their depth and b

16、readth of experience. Human capital includes employees know-how in certain fields that are important to the success of the enterprise, plus their aptitudes.Relational capital covers all the relationships that exist between the organization and other parties. These can include customers, intermediari

17、es, employees, suppliers, alliance partners, regulators, pressure groups, communities, creditors or investors. Relationships tend to fall into two categories: those that are formalized through contractual obligations with big customers and partners, for example; and those that are less formal.Struct

18、ural capital covers a broad range of vital factors. Foremost among them are usually the organizations essential operating processes; the way its structured; its policies; its information flows and the content of its databases; its management style and culture; and its incentive schemes. It can also

19、include intangible resources that are legally protected. Structural capital can be sub-categorized into practices and routines, organizational culture and intellectual property.The different elements of the three categories can overlap. The aim is not to have a rigorous framework that clearly separa

20、tes them, but to have one that you can use to identify and understand intellectual capital in your organization. Once you have decided which of these so-called intellectual value drivers you want to measure, its important to determine whether its actually worth measuring them. The aim of performance

21、 measures should be to provide meaningful information that helps to reduce uncertainty about intellectual capital and enables us to learn. Measures ought to help us make better-informed decisions that enable us to improve our performance. An excellent way of ensuring that any indicator is worth meas

22、uring is to establish the questions that the indicator will help to answer. In my work at the Advanced Performance Institute, I have developed the trademarked concept of Key Performance Questions (KPQ) to identify what it is that managers want to know about the various intellectual capital value dri

23、vers.Quite fundamentally, one must realize that nothing can be measured except the achievement of a goal. Key performance indicators (KPIs) only make sense when they are linked to a specific goal. In a sense, goals always formulate a question, to which the KPI provides an answer. To keep with the in

24、tellectual capital of success measurement: for each KPI, a key performance question (KPQ) is needed. KPQs make sure that any measure has a clear aim. If no question needs to be answered, there should be no need to measure anything. Once a question has been identified, you have to start thinking abou

25、t how to collect measurement data. At this point it is safe to assume that this intellectual capital value driver has probably been measured before, so dont reinvent the wheel. Do some research to find out whether measurement methods have already been developed. This can usually be done with simple

26、internet searches. If methods do exist, assess whether any of them are appropriate, as not all of them will be useful to you. If no appropriate method seems to exist, a new one has to be designed.For both existing and newly developed methods, you need to assess whether its possible to collect meanin

27、gful data and whether that data will help to answer your questions. It is also important to assess whether the resultant data warrants the costs and efforts of measurement, which can be significant. If no meaningful data can be collected or its not really helping you to answer the KPQ or if the cost

28、s are not justified, it is necessary to rethink and design different indicators. Once you have decided on an indicator, you should then identify the measurement instrument; the data source; the formula used to compute the indicator; the frequency of measurement; any targets or benchmarks; who will b

29、e doing the measuring; how long the indicator will be collected before it needs to be reviewed; the target audience for the indicator; and the reporting formats.Lets consider how an organization might apply the above approach in practice. A blue-chip company, InterCorp, wanted to measure its partner

30、ship with its key supplier an important intellectual capital value driver. Initially it didnt design KPQs and instead tried to find the quickest and easiest way to obtain some data. It did a little research and identified a firm that specialized in partnership evaluations and had designed a generic

31、questionnaire. InterCorp outsourced the collection of partnership data to this firm, which started to conduct the survey twice a year.“The aim of performance measures should be to provide meaningful information that helps to reduce uncertainty about intellectual capital and enables us to learn. Meas

32、ures ought to help us make better-informed decisions that enable us to improve our performance.”Initially, InterCorp was pleased with the service, since the firm provided detailed reports containing graphs, tables and trend analyses on about 50 different questions. While on the surface, InterCorp se

33、emed happy with how things were going, the partners were telling a different story. They felt that a lot of unnecessary data was being collected, which took them a lot of time and effort. It became clear that all of the data InterCorp was collecting was interesting to know, but that was it. Not one

34、decision had been based on the survey data over the past three years. InterCorp went back to the drawing board and identified the question it really wanted to answer. The KPQ it came up with was: how well are our partnerships progressing? It then considered what data would be needed in order to answ

35、er the question and the best collection method. After some deliberation, it agreed that the best solution was to ask the account managers for their assessment of relationships, which wouldnt require a long survey.InterCorp designed a system that automatically e-mailed a simple form to the account ma

36、nagers with only two questions: How would you assess the relationship with Company X? and How well is the partnership with Company X progressing? Next to the questions, the form included scales. Initially these had ten tick-boxes ranging from very bad to very good.These were later refined to three-p

37、oint scales: problematic, indifferent or positive for the first question and worse than before, the same as before and better than before for the second question.The form also included a field for a written comment. Account managers are now asked to assess the partnership by ticking a box on the sca

38、le and providing a short explanation of why they made that particular assessment. InterCorp realised that it might get a biased view if it asked only the account managers, so it e-mailed a version of the form to its partner firms that didnt include the comment field. The responses were compared in a

39、 database, and in over 95 per cent of cases, the internal and external assessments were identical. Where big differences in opinion occurred, the automated system triggered another e-mail to the account manager in question, prompting him or her to discuss any potential issues with the partner compan

40、y.InterCorp also decided that the data should be collected monthly, which should allow it to react to potential problems before they escalated. It now has a simple and cost-effective monthly performance measurement system for its supplier relationships, which gives it all the information it needs to

41、 answer its KPQ.This case illustrates the power of the KPQ approach and how it can be used to make any aspect of intellectual capital measurable. Success in todays economy is driven by intellectual capital above all. It is critical, therefore, to understand and manage the intellectual capital that u

42、nderpins value creation in your organization.Panel 1 Classification of Intellectual Capital:Physical Capital Financial CapitalIntellectual Capital1. Human capital:4l Knowledge and skillsl Work-related experiencel Competenciesl Vocational qualificationsl Employee engagementl Emotional intelligencel E

43、ntrepreneurial spiritl Flexibilityl Employee loyaltyl Employee satisfactionl Education- Creativity2. Relational capital:l Formal relationshipsl Informal relationshipsl Social networksl Partnershipsl Alliancesl Brand imagel Trustl Corporate reputationl Customer loyaltyl Customer engagementl Licensing

44、 agreementsl Joint ventures3. Structural capital:l Organizational culture: Corporate values Social capital Management philosophyl Intellectual property Brand names Data and information Codified knowledge Patents / copyrights Trade secretsl Processes / routines: Formal processes Tacit or informal rou

45、tines Management processesResource: Bernard Marr.Intangible Asset Measurement J.Accountants Today,2008, (9):16-18.译文：无形资产计量为了监视企业智力资本的运行状况，你必须提出所有合适的问题。伯纳德 马尔对此作了以下解释。如果没有必要的有效信息来引导你的战略决策，要获得商业成功是不可能的。这就像闭着眼睛在驾驶：你看不到你要去哪儿，也看不到检查速度的仪器。问题是，这就是当我们企业涉及到无形资产时，我们所面临的局面。我们缺乏有形的有意义的绩效指标，如一个组织所拥有的信息、它的形象和声誉、

46、其核心专长或它的客户关系。他们对企业当前和未来的发展可能是重要的，但如果我们没有得到有关的可靠信息，我们就不能充分计量它们。总的来说，这些无形资产被称为智力资本。研究证明，虽然大多数高管承认智力资本对他们企业的持续成功至关重要，但是计量管理这些无形资产的方法是很差的或不存在的。这一发现促进了管理会计准则的一项创造，称为：“影响未来价值：如何管理你的智力资本。”这份准则由特许管理会计公会、美国注册会计师协会和加拿大管理会计师公会联合出版，旨在为管理者提供实用的工具和技术来确认、计量、管理和披露智力资本。它对以下5个成功的智力资本管理的步骤提供了详细的指导：1、 如何识别组织中的知识资本。2、 如

47、何映射和评估智力资本战略的重要性。3、 如何计量智力资本。4、 如何管理智力资本。5、 如何呈报智力资本。我会集中于计量问题，并提供有关如何计量智力资本的一些见解。有关具体的工具，请参阅管理会计准则。只有当绩效指标提供有意义和相关的信息时它们才是有用的。可悲的是，智力资本计量实践的典型表现形式，可以描述为：1、确认所有的智力资本都是简单计量的。2、收集和披露的所有数据都是简单计量的。3、最终使得你摸不着头脑并引发思考：到底我们要用这些性能数据做什么？为了避免这种陷阱，我们需要确定与智力资本要素相关的业务和战略，只有到那时，你才应该考虑计量它们。我们经常有一个误解，认为智力资本是很难计量或无法计

48、量的。情况不是这样的，它很可能比你所想的许多计量方法更容易。但在我们做更具体的事情前，我们首先要定义的是智力资本究竟是什么。企业所拥有的智力资产如人力资本、知识产权和研究开发比厂房和机器设备等传统资产要多。通过调整智力资本创造企业竞争优势，并从全球获取知识性的创造资源为自己创造竞争优势。以知识为基础的战略决策是联系和计量公司在其工作中明智的反映。在复杂和不断搜索的的世界里，企业必须明智并坚定地利用一些机会，包括新的探索和知识有效利用的结合，知识支持共享，智力资本流动管理。与实物资本和金融资本一样，智力资本是企业的三个重要资源之一。它包括所有有助于提供该组织战略的无形资源。这些可以分为三类：人力资本，结构资本和关系资本（见第1小组）。企业人力资本的主要类别，指的是人员的技能与经验的深度和广度。人力资本包括员工的知识（在某些领域对企业的成功十分重要），还包括他们的素质和态度。关系资本包含存在于该企业和其他各方的所有关系。它们包括客户、中介机构、雇员、供应商、联盟伙伴、监管机构、压力集团、社区、债权人或投资者。关系一般分为两类：一类是正规化的关系，例如通过与大客户和合作伙伴订立