Learn From Government’s Mistakes

The infrastructure of your company is the ideas it was built on. Don’t do what governments do with their infrastructure. You should budget to constantly maintain and improve the intellectual capital that forms the basis of your company.

There is much discussion over the need to raise taxes to pay for the maintenance and improvement of the nation’s infrastructure. But there would not even be a discussion now if governments had planned for maintenance and improvements at the time the initial investments were made.

Similarly, even great ideas get stale in an economy where customers are always looking for the next new thing. So you need to review regularly the fundamental ideas that are the basis of your competitive advantages.

If you have patents, how can the inventions be improved and new ones developed? If you have trademarks, what are you doing to improve the value of the brands they protect? If you develop copyrighted content for your website as part of your marketing plan, what are you doing to ensure it is relevant?

Don’t abandon your infrastructure after you create it. Make sure your company is constantly developing, refining,and protecting its most important assets, its ideas.