Intellectual Capital/Stewart 28-32

29 …it’s essential to learning how to compete with knowledge.

31 Knowledge and information take on their own reality, which can be detached from the physical movement of goods and services. From this divergence come at least two important implications. First, knowledge and the assets that create and distribute it can be managed, just as physical and financial assets can be. Second, If knowledge is the greatest source of wealth, then individuals, companies, and nations should invest in the assets that produce and process knowledge.

32 Understanding that one can manage the shadow, the information flow, can be an enormous source of efficiency and profit.

The insight that gave reengineering its primary source of value was the strands of information, when they are disentangled from the movement of products and services, can be managed much more efficiently than when the two are bound up with one another.

The knowledge company travels light. When information has replaced stockpiles of inventory and when it has left its material body and taken on a business life of its own, a company ultimately becomes a different kind of creature. A traditional company is a collection of physical assets, bought and owned by capitalists who are responsible for maintaining them, and who hire people to operate them.