Just as structural and human capital, relationships can be part of a company's inherent value. Relationship Capital can be the relationship with customers (customer capital) or suppliers (supplier capital) which often resembles more of a partnership. Relationship Capital can also be a company's 'Mind Share' that it enjoys in its 'Market Space'.

Customer capital (or relationship capital as it may also be called) is the business value (potential or actual) of all of the enterprise's relationships-with its employees, suppliers, customers, partners, and its competitors. The flow of information across such relationships expands the enterprise's overall intellectual capital, which enhances the enterprise's ability to compete in the Knowledge Economy. The information-based value chain that results from the active use of relationships can progressively transfer marketplace power to the customer. Connectivity, particularly in the form of alliances, is critical to effectively extracting ongoing business value from customer capital.

These are defined as under:

• Customer capital :
  It is the combined value of all the relationships a company has with its clients.

• Supplier capital> :
  is the combined value of all the relationships a company has with its suppliers.

• Mind Share :
  is what every company hopes for: to have the company's brand or name at the top of peoples shortlist of known products, or to have their name or product become synonymous with a (perceived) added value.

Now we will describe these concepts in greater detail.

Just as financial, structural and human capital, relationships are part of a company's inherent value

Customer Capital is the combined value of all the relationships a company has with it's clients. Such a relationship could be special in the way that the company has won the complete trust of a customer company, in the way that both of the companies have a good understanding of each others needs and inner workings or even the procedures they have developed to do business together such as EDI. In the case of the professional services industry, customer capital can be both a benefit and detriment.

For a company to service a client in a particular industry, such as consumer beverage, the knowledge a company would gather about it's client's processes and procedures (manufacturing) will add to the company's knowledge and allow them to service other clients in the beverage industry with more experience than before. This can of course become problematic in cases where these multiple clients from a single industry are in stiff competition with each other.

In many cases this creates a paradox for companies where their customer capital and their relationship has grown to an extent where new opportunities arise that increase the company's financial capital as a direct result of it's relationship with it's clients and understanding of their client's 'business' but are forced to consider severing their relationship in order to grow. One could present a case of severe risk if the customer capital of the first client was not properly captured and managed for use with the new, larger client. Going back to the first client will more than likely never be an option.

It is critical for managers and executive management to tap into their organizations relationships. This in turn requires proper management of their human capital, for there can only be so many meetings in a day to receive 'updates'. This must be a scalable resource.

Never forget that you are also a client, and can garner great value by understanding the intricacies of managing expectations in this relationship.

Supplier Capital is the combined value of all the relationships a company has it's with it's suppliers. This relationship could be special in the way that the company has bargained extremely low prices, or that the supplier works in close co-operation with the company to find solutions for problems.

Supplier capital becomes evident in the example of a company contracting a networking firm to wire it's office. In that process and based on the results, the company will have learned a tremendous amount (usually how 'not to do it next time') which is valuable knowledge. If properly captured and managed, this learning will make the next installation in the new expansion office more efficient and effective.

Employee Suppliers and outsourcing companies can also be seen as 'suppliers'. Particularly these categories of suppliers need to be managed VERY closely, for they will not only walk out of your door with a lot of your customer capital memorized but they could go straight to your direct competition and contribute to their knowledge thanks to your poor management. The most common form of huge supplier capital waste is the use of a temporary employment agency for a receptionist position. Please take into account that the receptionist is usually the first voice and face of the company to it's customers, stakeholders and employees. A good receptionist is a 'smart-bomb' loaded with knowledge. She/he knows for instance:

Where everyone is at any moment in time;

Which calls to put through directly and which to bounce to voice mail based on employee preference; What the client said about the meeting they just attended as they leave your office (they never think that the receptionist might actually talk to the 'boss' about that!)

If this form of capital is not properly captured and managed, it will all walk out the door when the temp does, at vast expense to the efficiency of the company and relationship to it's customers, stakeholders and employees.

It is a generally accepted and sound business practice to tie payment into deliverables of codifying knowledge of each project. This will ensure you are capturing as much of the information in temporary employees minds as possible. For full-timers this can easily be carried over by tying the codification process into performance reviews.

Mind Share is what every company hopes for: To have the company's brand or name at the top of peoples shortlist of known products or to have their name or product become synonymous with a (perceived) added value. If people were asked to name a brand of soft drink, Coca-Cola would love to hear their brandname come first. Likewise, the Swedish car manufacturer likes to hear people call something 'as safe as a Volvo'.

Creating and maintaining mind share can take enormous effort and resources (financial capital), but is considered one of the most important assets any company has. Including Mind Share in a company's Intellectual Capital valuation is both essential and complex.

Building a powerful brand is not something one can learn from a textbook, it is accomplished by a complete harmonious environment of mixed capitals, proper timing and to some extent luck. Luck can of course be disputed, but that is for another project ;-)

A brand is also very fragile and can be tarnished very easily in today's networked world with 'news' travelling very quickly. Conversely, a brand can be created virtually overnight. In April of 1998 the common consumer had probably never heard of the multinational pharmaceutical giant Phizer. One month later every consumer not stuck under a huge rock was very familiar with the company's anti-impotence drug Viagra. In this case the company had a product that was apparently in large demand and received the proper approvals prior to announcement of the drug for maximum impact in the 'market space'.

Mind Share is what every company hopes for: To have the company's brand or name be synonymous with its product: How often do we still speak of "Xeroxing a document"?