As demand is more volatile today what becomes more important is the ‘work to be done’, not the ‘work done’.
Surprisingly Adam Smith identified this important difference back in 1776.
This can be explained as the ‘work done’ is the accumulated knowledge, which has built up and been embodied in the firm's results with the innovations achieved in the past and is seen as the tangible capital.
The work to be done is how well it can adapt to change. In the past century, we operated in mass production era, systems with standard goods and stable market conditions the ‘work done’ was equivalent to the ‘work to be done’.
In today’s global market, with its rapid technology diffusion, disruptive and constant change with an emphasis on service the ‘work to be done’ is more important than the ‘work done’ and intangible assets are fundamental to this.
They provide the intellectual capital to react to changing demand for the required future value creation that needs to be sustaining, to be done.
Work to be done is the need for our future growth and well-being to be derived from innovation activities. These so much made up of intangible parts will provide the new wealth of organizations in the knowledge sharing economy of today and the near future.
We need new forms of evaluation to measure the real asset wealth of the organization to understand the points of intensity, their connected dynamics and what is required to reconfigure the changing capabilities and capacities needed to grow in the future
You do need to find out more of the emerging Work to be done approach as it is a far more dynamic place for innovation to happen.