Are you interested in improving your business’s workflows to remain competitive among other production companies? Proper intellectual property management is vital for achieving ultimate efficiency. Businesses that successfully secure, reuse, and share their intellectual property result in accelerated time to market and lower production costs. Let’s explore common challenges for companies that manufacture products and how certain tools can help achieve the best results.
Challenges of Intellectual Property Management
Intellectual Property Security
While properly managing intellectual property benefits organizations, there are unfortunately some challenges that come with protecting IP. One of the most important factors of intellectual property management is security. Protecting IP from unauthorized access and cyber-attacks can be difficult. Businesses must ensure their sensitive data is not vulnerable to hackers. Additionally, digital piracy is common in many industries such as software and pharmaceuticals. Consistently enforcing rights to prevent this can be resource-intensive.
Reusing Intellectual Property
In addition to security challenges, reusing intellectual property can also be demanding. It is common to struggle with effectively identifying and cataloging IP assets. Without proper documentation, valuable intellectual property may be underutilized or accidentally duplicated. Another challenge that comes with IP reuse is ensuring it is protected from erosion or misuse. Too much reuse can lead to these kinds of issues. Reuse also involves effective collaboration across departments as miscommunication can hinder reuse efforts. Lastly, IP must be consistently updated to suit current trends and technological advancements as reusing outdated information leads to compliance issues.
Sharing Intellectual Property
There are a few more general issues you may run into when managing and sharing intellectual property. The first is developing licensing agreements and negotiating terms regarding IP protection and usage. Coming to an agreement that benefits all parties involved in IP usage can be difficult. Another common issue is ensuring compliance with global IP laws and regulations. Compliance can get complex, especially for companies operating across countries. Lastly, enforcing IP rights and securing assets can get costly, especially for smaller companies.
How SPK Helps Your Business Secure, Reuse, and Share Intellectual Property
At SPK and Associates, we understand the challenges of IP management and can help your business address them. We utilize a comprehensive approach that integrates robust systems, well-defined processes, and advanced technology to accelerate market entry and lower production costs for your company.
Consulting
As a consulting company, we understand the best technology for implementation, as well as which services will work best to optimize your business’s IP management. We work closely with our clients to assess their current workflows and identify issues so we can streamline processes, enhancing IP security, reuse, and sharability. These results can be summed up by our acronym, ACEs. Accelerated time to market, Cost efficiency, Ensured compliance, and Exceptional quality are the main results SPK can achieve for your business.
Tools
SPK partners with many amazing companies that provide powerful tools that support IP management and protection. PTC is one of these partners offering PLM and ALM tools. Windchill PLM enables companies to securely manage their product data and IP throughout the entire product lifecycle. It allows clients to centralize their data, ensuring that sensitive information is protected through robust access controls and security protocols. Additionally, users can easily track and manage changes within Windchill, which reduces the risk of costly errors.
PTC’s ALM tool Codebeamer is a great tool for enabling the reuse of software components and design elements. Reusing existing IP allows companies to shorten development cycles, improve product quality, and lower the cost of goods sold. In addition to this, Codebeamer efficiently manages requirements and test cases as well.
Collaboration
SPK not only recommends the best tools, but we can help set them up to ensure each system is tailored to each client’s unique needs. We ensure the systems and processes we implement enable secure IP and data sharing across teams. Using tools like Windchill and Codebeamer helps companies establish controlled environments where IP can be accessed by the right people at the right time. Additionally, these tools foster innovation by enabling cross-functional teams to work together more effectively.
Ready to Implement Proper Intellectual Property Management?
If you desire lower production costs, more secure and efficient workflows, and an overall better competitive advantage for your business, we can help. SPK and Associates provide the systems, processes, and expertise needed to achieve these results. Contact our experts today to learn how you can better manage your intellectual property.
