We must all stop and think about the answers and not let the urgent issues force out the important ones. Proper value is now being placed on a company's knowledge, information and intellectual property. What you know about products, markets and customers may lead you to your ultimate differentiator. The Internet also allows you to trade in what you know, like selling advice or providing more information content with products. But very few companies will survive by selling information or ideas alone.
Most companies still make their money from selling tangible products.
The future will belong to those companies that know how to make tangible and intangible assets work together for customers in unique and innovative ways. Too much money can cloud your mind. For a couple of years, the capital markets were willing to provide lots of money to start-ups, many of which had little more than ideas. Although that phenomena has slowed down, there are still lots of venture dollars chasing ideas. The availability of money has made it appear a lot easier to buy parts of a company and put them together than it is to build a company from scratch.