Globalization has spawned the emergence of economies emphasizing, above all, the creation and sustenance of wealth. The unmistakable impact of the technological revolution has invariably led to a heightened importance being bestowed on the continual exchange of information and dissemination of ideas. This has pronounced a gradual ascendance in the role of intangibles. The conventional tangibles are giving way to the emerging intangibles in determining profitability. With personnel competencies gaining precedence over physical assets, the latter can no more claim to be in the driver's seat. Full marks to the scientific revolution of the genre! The enveloping effects of uncommon presentation, brand appeal or imaginative content very often reveal an increasing tendency of tangibles deriving value from the intangibles. Continual innovations with periodic review have become the norm in an era that has been a witness to internationalization of trade coupled with far-reaching deregulation and technical sophistication in all the major sectors of the economy. In general, a successful innovation is a function of critical factors relating to prudent investments in information systems, regular training of the workforce, research and development and customer relationships/acquisition.

But what are these "intangibles"? They are assets, which are capable of being defined but suffer from the lack of being measured with precision; assets that represent a non-physical claim to potential benefits that are bereft of a physical/financial tangible presence; assets which vary notably in their characteristics, useful lives and connection with the operations, are legal rights with long lives, or competitive advantages developed or acquired by an organization. An oft-quoted aspect while differentiating intangibles from tangibles is that the latter have what economists call "partial excludability"-the ability to exclude others from using the assets, but in the case of intangibles such as human capital, brand name or customer base, it is not really possible to strictly preclude the arising benefits from accruing to others. Intangible assets, also known as "intellectual capital" and "knowledge assets in economics and management respectively," have always existed, but they have gained greater significance recently. A broad classification of intangibles shall comprise human resources, brands/franchises, spillover knowledge creating novel products and structural capital in the form of systems and processes. Notwithstanding the volatility of the stock prices, there has been a phenomenal increase in the market-to-book ratio, which is the ratio of the capital market values to their net assets as given in their balance sheets of corporations over the past two decades.

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