The term Resource means materials, stocks, money, staff and other assets that can be used by a person or a company to function efficiently and effectively, lets also say that these are the tangible resources. Resource could also mean an experience which has ensured learning that can be of use in the future, lets call this the intangible resources. Also lets extend the definition of an intangible resource not just to the experience but also to the parties involved in the experience.
While companies and individuals take note of effective and efficient utilization of the tangible resources, most times the intangible resources are forgotten, leading to repetition of tasks and the experiences of the same learning. This leads to increase in cost as time is being reused over a task which has been performed earlier, decrease in productivity as what was produced in terms of learning through the earlier experience is forgotten, and is reproduced by putting in time and repeating the process.
Let’s take an example of raising funds from a financial institution for your business. One may try to run this process with couple of institutions to validate the processes as per the regulation. The entire experience along with the parties involved is now an intangible resource. The end result of securing the funding is a tangible resource, which is very valuable, but the intangible resource of the experience and the parties involved in it is also equally or more valuable, as in a future time, if another requirement of raising fresh funds for another business comes in, then the intangible resource is surely the best option to proceed with as the process and the parties involved are familiar. Approaching a new financial institution involves repetition of a lot of the same tasks and processes that one has already gone through in the first place, thus resulting in waste of time and money.
As an entrepreneur one must not just pay attention to the effective and efficient use of the tangible resources, but also the intangible resources. And in my experience most entrepreneurs are going to have a longer list of intangible resources than the tangible resources.
