The Industrial Age can be considered to have started in the 1890s. Henry Ford was one of the most visionary in his day and used that vision to form the Ford Motor Company, a model of how to improve production of industrial output. The industrial age shifted its focus from just making a good product to making a decent product that could be mass-produced cheaply.

Mass production and mass distribution enabled greater production and greater wealth. The model consisted of having a central facility (mine, factory) and people traveling to it to perform their jobs.

If they were able to produce 11 widgets an hour instead of 10, they increased their output by 10%. If they worked *really* hard, they could even double that output. And if the company truly wanted extra productivity, they would pay overtime or increase the workforce. Henry Ford was obsessive about output, realizing that by streamlining and thus incrementing output, he would increase the company's revenue substantially.

It's not important to know the exact processes that Henry Ford devised. What is important is the strategy behind them. Ford devised his strategy in the days when raw goods were produced, transported to small construction yards and then made into a final product by hand. The concept of a car factory was new in those days. People would be 'the blacksmith' or 'the buggy-whip maker'. When Ford set up his factory, jobs changed into employment at the conveyor belt, which increased productivity to an unprecedented level

What has happened over the past century would have been totally beyond the comprehension of people in those days. The concept of a fully automated factory, using robots to assemble and paint cars in a variety of models and versions, something we now take for granted, would have been unimaginable.

Even to Henry Ford himself, the concept of an automated factory with an employee operating computers from a home-office would probably have been a very scary thought.

We are now at a point that is comparable to the stage of building the roads and Model 'T' Fords of the Industrial Age. In the Industrial Age people were suddenly able to travel relatively large distances. In the Information Age people can physically travel far greater distances and virtually travel even greater lengths in seconds.

Fantastic developments await us which are perhaps as undreamt of in the same way that the potential of electricity was to most people one hundred years ago. It would have been hard to grasp the concept that this 'magic' would be used profitably and would spawn such milestones as the telegraph, telephone, radio, television and high-speed data networks.

This is no longer beyond the realms of our possibilities nor is it science fiction. But in the same way electricity has grown beyond the imagination of our predecessors, so will the concept of information in the future. The concept of Intellectual Capital is not an easy one to comprehend, yet it will undoubtedly become one of the most important concepts of the Information Age. It is here now, the dawning of the most significant era that mankind has ever seen.

"The major problem faced by corporations today is not the scarce allocation of capital, but the bottleneck of capabilities."

An enterprise is made up of tangible assets, intangible assets and financial capital.

Tangible assets are required for business operations, and are recorded on the balance sheet. Examples of tangible assets include: manufacturing plants, equipment, buildings and other elements of physical infrastructure, etc.

However, it is our intangible assets (our intellectual capital) that will provide competitive advantage in the knowledge era. Examples of intangible assets include: technological know-how, customer loyalty, branding, business processes, etc.

Financial capital :
This type of capital is most well known, and is what most people regard as capital.

For detailed information on refer WebPages on Financial Capital (Page: 4)

Structural capital :
All the tangible assets of a company, including desks, computers, offices etc. and tangible 'intangible' assets, such as documentation, processes, computer source code, Intellectual Property (patents, trademarks) and data warehouses as well as the physical network through which data flows.

For detailed information on refer WebPages on Structural Capital (Page: 5)

Human capital :
The combined value of the knowledge, experience and goodwill of employees.

For detailed information on refer WebPages on Human Capital (Page: 6)

Relationship capital :
The combined value of the goodwill or trust that a company has built with its customers and suppliers, as well as its 'Mind-Share'.

For detailed information refer WebPages on Relationship Capital (Page: 7)

Besides the amount of money in the bank (financial capital) and the money spent on things like desks (structural capital), a company also has the combined experience of its staff (human capital) and relationships with its customers or suppliers (relationship capital). The combination of these four different types of capital makes up the capital of a company. Only by examining all these types of capital can one begin to deal with the new issues that the Information Age has created.

Enhancing knowledge sharing and learning at all levels (individual level, the organizational level) will accelerate our organizational capabilities. It's all about jumping the curve.

We can do this by building a knowledge infrastructure. Why?

1. Learning enhances business competencies.

2. We will have a superior ability to understand and detect what's going on in the marketplace (where preferences are shifting rapidly)

3. We can transfer skills across the organization and expand our markets faster

4. We can generate new opportunities for the organization before the marketplace has discovered they are required

Let's look at customer relationships and value creation...

Exchange of knowledge at the customer level serves as the basis for value creation. The overall level of trust in the relationship will determine its bandwidth and the extent of its potential for creating value. A relationship characterized by mistrust will obviously provide a poor platform for interaction. As customer relationships develop, there are different stages...

• Transactions: one time sale of a product/service

• Product Solutions: selecting/proposing an "augmented" product/service in response to an expressed customer need

• Business Solutions: working with the customer to jointly craft business opportunities that would not have been possible without a deep mutual understanding/trust

• Partnering: shaping/configuring an array of benefits and features services to provide the value creating functionality required by the customer

Recent research has also shown that the values of customers are fast evolving with the emergence of the knowledge era. Customers want to deal with people who will partner with them, and will demonstrate a stake in helping them realize their aspirations. Increasingly, customers are looking for commitment, trust, and a sense of ownership in any transaction.