What KPIs should track intangible asset health?

Short Answer

Key intangible asset KPIs include net revenue retention, brand NPS, patent portfolio strength, employee retention, R&D intensity, customer concentration, and data asset growth rate.

Full Explanation

Tracking intangible asset health requires metrics that serve as leading indicators of future financial performance. The most important KPIs by asset category are as follows. Customer capital: net revenue retention (NRR) measures whether existing customers grow or shrink — above 100% indicates expansion without new sales. Customer lifetime value to acquisition cost ratio (LTV:CAC) should exceed 3:1 for healthy unit economics. Logo churn rate tracks customer loss at the account level. Brand capital: Net Promoter Score (NPS) measures customer willingness to recommend, correlating with organic growth. Brand search volume (the number of people searching for your brand name) indicates awareness trajectory. Share of voice measures your brand mentions relative to competitors. Technology capital: R&D intensity (R&D spend as % of revenue) indicates investment in future capability. Patent grant rate and citation index measure IP portfolio quality. Technology debt ratio (time spent on maintenance vs new development) signals platform health. Human capital: voluntary turnover rate (especially for key roles) predicts capability loss. Revenue per employee measures workforce productivity. Time to full productivity for new hires indicates organisational capital quality. Data capital: proprietary data volume growth rate, data freshness (% of data less than 12 months old), and AI model accuracy trends. Companies should select 10-15 KPIs from these categories based on their business model and review them quarterly alongside financial metrics.

Try It Yourself

Productivity Calculator · Intangibles Questionnaire

Related Glossary Terms

Benchmarking

Related Questions

What intangible assets do startups typically have?

Startups typically hold intangible assets including proprietary technology, brand identity, founder expertise, customer ...

How do you value intangible assets in a pre-seed or seed stage startup?

Pre-seed intangible assets are valued using the Cost Approach (replacement cost of development), qualitative scoring fra...

How should startups protect their intellectual property?

Startups should prioritise trade secrets and confidentiality agreements for speed and cost, file provisional patents for...

Want to see these concepts in action?

Discover how the Opagio Growth Platform puts intangible asset theory into practice.