The next big turning point in the economy is the systemization of innovation.

The MIT Sloan Business Review is available by subscription only, but the MeansBusiness newsletter has this excerpt from one of their articles by Armand V. Feigenbaum and Donald S. Feigenbaum in the Winter 2005 issue. Their new book, The Power of Management Capital, looks interesting.

We find evidence in a wide range of industry sectors that the systematization of management innovation will be a critical success factor for 21st century companies. An increasing emphasis on it can be detected in companies’ gradual but nonetheless enormous shift from investment in ‘hard’ assets – bricks and mortar, equipment, inventories – toward investment in ‘soft’ assets – supply chain processes, human resources, technology, copyrights, brands, patents and the like.