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Rating: 
Summary: Making the Business Case for Intangibles
Review: Invisible Advantage is an excellent resource on how the capital markets value intangible factors and their impact on the bottom line. The authors clearly describe 12 measures-ranging from leadership and reputation to talent and innovation-which contribute to opinion makers' and market movers' investment decisions. Low's and Kalafut's research on how nonfinancial factors are taken into account by buy-side and sell-side analysts is revolutionary and finally answers the age-old question of which factors are most important in how companies are valued and perceived. In these uncertain times, the authors' hierarchy of intangibles provides a welcome roadmap for CEOs and other top officers looking to understand what to prioritize- customer know-how, technological prowess, intellectual property, or talent? Because market capitalization and reputation are often influenced by factors other than the bottom line, this book is extraordinarily useful in making the business case for communicating the invisible equity often hidden within corporations. This is a book that matters.
Rating: 
Summary: Stating the obvious on not a very novel topic
Review: The book is basically about how capital markets value intangibles and also how intangibles influence the company performance in general. The authors have conducted an apparently detailed research and worked out a Value Creation Index on which, they show, intangibles have a significant impact. From this proof, they move on to list 12 intangibles which are important (at present time) for company performance. They then conclude that a major challenge for today's companies is to work out a method to MANAGE those intangibles which are CRITICAL to the industry that the company is working in.The idea is good. However, it is NOT NEW at all. Banking training companies, like Euromoney Training have been showing in their 'Bank Credit Analysis' classes for the last 14 years the importance of Non-Financial Analysis in evaluating creditworthiness of a company. They have been pointing out ever since that non-financial analysis is far more important than financial analysis (but should be carried out jointly) in understanding potential company performance. Also, there are various books published in late 1980s and early 1990s which elaborated on that point. So you see, the idea of valuing 'non-financial' intangible factors has been around for quite a while. We can only say, regarding this book, that it provides further evidence to a well-known argument. That's all. When it comes to other points and 12 areas, i.e. the importance of branding and brands, human capital, property rights (intellectual capital), strategy execution, innovation, networking and alliances etc., there is also ample literature on the importance and detailing of these issues. We have known these factors for at least 15-20 years in their coming. So, if the book is pointing to the increasing incidence of these occurences, we can only agree with the authors. However, the discovery of these developments date back to much earlier times and the points are already "obvious" for the students of "doing business in modern times". So, I would reccommend the book if you are a novice to the field. However, if you have a more than slight familiarity with the changing conditions of doing business in the last 10 years, the book is certainly NOT for you. It is just an ecclectic effort on a very familiar subject.
Rating: 
Summary: Very poor job on Important Topic
Review: This book is full of appeal to authority fallacies, cliches, anecdotes and references to articles in newspapers which is sad state of affairs considering that one of the authors is a Ph.D. The "used" price for this book is in the basement for a reason. This may entertain a first year student at a low level college somewhere or a high level high school student but it's really unfortunate that this subject was treated in such a sloppy manner.
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