VA L U E OF BU S I N E S S I NTA NG I BLE S
Explaining ‘How to
Measure Anything’
Latest edition of book takes another look at seven
arguments, new and old.
BY DOUGLAS W. HUBBARD (left)
AND DOUGLAS A. SAMUELSON
A
nalytics professionals and
decision-makers are often
stymied by the lack of good
metrics on which to base decisions. But everything that matters has
observable consequences and, with a bit
of (often trivial) math, these observations
provide the grounds for reducing uncertainty. Even imperfect information has a
computable value for decisions.
These ideas were summarized in the
book “How to Measure Anything: Finding the Value of ‘Intangibles’ in Business”
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A N A LY T I C S - M A G A Z I N E . O R G
[Hubbard, 2007, 2010, 2014], written by
one of the authors of this article. With
65,000 copies of the book sold in five languages, the message seems to strike a
chord. The client list of the author’s firm,
Hubbard Decision Research (HDR), and
the thousands of individuals who have
registered on the book’s website indicate
a diverse audience. They include engineers, human resources, software developers, information-security specialists,
scientists from many fields, managers in
many industries, actuaries and teachers. It
W W W. I N F O R M S . O R G