In the new economy, a company's main asset is no longer its materials, machinery and physical inventory. Instead, a company's main asset becomes its value creation ability derived from intangibles such as knowledge, networking, brand management and intellectual property. The products of the future are extended products, consisting of tangible components and increasingly important intangible components. The intangibles are the software or the services related to the product, e.g. after-sales services. Intangibles are SMEs sharing their knowledge to meet jointly the demand set by the marketplace.
Intangible assets are also the relationships between the supplier and the customer.
In this context, information becomes a key competitive advantage. A mobile phone is a good example. The handset, the tangible component, has some value. But the software and content is already more important in affecting the value to the customer. The tangible product, i.e., the phone itself is of no use without the intangible element, i.e., the network connection to a service provider.