Corporate Reputation

01

The Economy of Intangibles and Reputation

We are entering a new economic cycle that can be labelled “the economy of intangibles and corporate reputation”. Over the past 30 years, a steady increase in the value of intangible assets has been observed (the value of intangible assets held by S&P 500 companies tripled over this period, with 62 per cent of the total value of all listed companies in the world now reported to be intangible[1]). This trend intensified further with the crisis that began in 2008.[2]

Intangible assets are more important than ever before. They account for an increasingly greater share of companies’ business value, so much so that financial results and profitability are more deeply affected by the exchange and management ...