Identify The Key Intangible Assets Of A Large Energy Company

The client is a national energy generator, wholesaler and retailer. It owns a number of power stations and its generation portfolio consists of geothermal, hydro and natural gas assets. Since its establishment in the 1990s, the company has led the field in renewable energy diversification and now sources over 80% of its energy from renewable sources.

The company invests significant amounts of money into solving problems they encounter in their day-to-day operations. These problems are not unique to their business and they believed the solutions they had developed could be applicable to other companies in the same business as well as other industries entirely.

The challenge involved the identification and review of this intellectual property. The highly innovative engineers staffing the business did not entirely appreciate what they were developing; what was routine to them was sometimes a completely new solution in the industry. These innovations could potentially save other companies large amounts of time and money and provide an alternative revenue stream for their own business.

EverEdge developed a framework to categorize the company’s intangible assets, identified the most attractive opportunities, and proposed pathways for their monetization. EverEdge also identified a number of different ways the company could interact smarter with their intellectual property. This involved spinning out different pieces of intellectual property and making sure intellectual property did not walk out the door to competitors.

EverEdge also looked outside the company for innovations that could assist their operations. A number of smart solutions were identified; potentially reduce the cost and risk associated with research and development.

Investigations also revealed a number of innovators and inventors had been regularly utilizing the company’s resources for their own purposes. The inventors were testing their external innovations using company resources but commercializing the innovations themselves. The company was inadvertently providing resources to the inventors who were also leveraging the company brand for promotional purposes.

EverEdge identified a large number of intangible assets embedded in the company. These were formally categorized and a shortlist extracted featuring those with the most commercialization potential. A road map to market was then prepared for the selected opportunities. EverEdge also made a series of recommendations concerning the relationship between the independent inventors and the company.

Consequently, the company is moving to formalize their relationships with independent inventors and to receive some sort of upside from these arrangements. The company as a whole is also more aware of its intangible assets and the value and investment they represent.