Unlock the value of your hidden IP: the CODIFY approach

Does your business have unrealised intellectual property – and how do you actually turn it into a competitive advantage? 

Our previous blog explored how engineering and professional services firms often sit on goldmines of ‘hidden IP’ – operational processes that make them genuinely different from competitors and deliver value to clients, yet remain invisible to prospects and even their own teams. 

We explained how shining a light on this ‘hidden’ IP not only aligns teams, it adds significantly to the business’ value.  

And most importantly, how articulating your ‘special sauce’ to give you a real edge over competitors, adds rocket fuel to your sales and marketing effectiveness. 

We’ve discussed this with numerous clients, and the common response is “Yes, we know we do things differently, but we have no idea how to capture and use it.” 

Sound familiar? 

The challenge isn’t just recognising that you have unique IP – it’s knowing how to systematically clarify, document, embed and use it to support a convincing market positioning that makes a virtue of your strengths. 

The reality is, if you can’t articulate your IP, it has little operational value.  

And if you don’t articulate it, it has no market value. 

The hidden cost of fuzzy process 

Your IP doesn’t just lie in WHAT you do, it’s also in HOW you do it and WHY you do it. All too often, this isn’t written down anywhere. 

A recent example: an engineering business told us they were all about collaboration with clients.  

But when we asked what they actually DO to ensure collaboration is consistently applied to every project by every project staff member, they were unable to answer.  

Often, such things are second nature to a founder/CEO, and just as often, that person is frustrated that others don’t “just pick it up”. But it doesn’t work like that! 

Here’s what most engineering firms don’t realise:  

Every day your unique approach remains unclear, unfocused or undocumented, potential is lost in five critical ways: 

1. Staff confidence suffers. Without clear expectations, team members second-guess themselves, leading to confusion, inconsistency and even over-engineering and delays, and they can’t represent the business 
2. Clients are kept in the dark. If you can’t explain your process to your clients, how can they be expected to meaningfully engage with it? 
3. Prospects don’t appreciate your value. What you do is special and that gives you a real edge in the market – but only if you can spell it out!  
4. Knowledge walks out the door. When senior staff leave, decades of refined processes go with them. One client calculated they lost over $200,000 in efficiency when their head of design retired, taking his unique approach to client communication with him. 

So, how do you capture the hidden IP lurking inside your operational practices? 

CODIFY: a proven roadmap to competitive advantage 

After working with numerous engineering firms to transform their hidden IP into business assets, we’ve developed a six-phase process that takes you from “we just do things our way” to having clear, trainable, sellable methodologies. 

CODIFY is specifically designed for engineering and technical services firms to help them not just enhance internal operations but also to build better relationships with clients and add a new sales and marketing weapon. . 

This isn’t about overhauling your operational processes, it’s about identifying what aspects of it delivers the clearest benefit to your clients, embedding them into your methodology to ensure it delivers your unique value to clients,  and articulating it simply so prospects understand it and your team can talk about it. 

The CODIFY framework stands for: 

• Capture core knowledge and how your current practices deliver on your brand promise (your hidden IP)
• Organise into frameworks, tweaking current processes as necessary
• Document the processes that deliver value to clients
• Integrate into current operational systems
• Formalise through training and accountability initiatives
• Yield measurable results by presenting it imaginatively to the market 

Let’s look at each step: 

Capture and extract knowledge from your best performers through structured interviews and project reviews. We’re not interested in everything – just the 20% of activities that create 80% of your differentiated value.  

Organise this knowledge into logical, simple, memorable steps. What conversations need to happen, and with who? Tweak current processes to ensure they deliver the value-adds you promise.   

Document a concise, practical explanation. We’re talking 5-8 pages maximum, not encyclopaedic manuals. If staff can’t digest it quickly, they won’t use it. 

Integrate processes into existing operational systems and workflows, ensuring they become part of daily habits rather than additional burdens. 

Formalise targeted training that gets everyone using the same approach and incorporate accountability measures. A half-day workshop is typically enough. 

Yield results by measuring and creating feedback loops for continuous improvement. Without measurement, even the best processes gradually drift and lose effectiveness. 

The investment in competitive advantage 

Implementing CODIFY isn’t onerous and can be one of the highest-return investments most engineering firms can make. The combination of improved internal communications, efficiency, enhanced staff confidence, and empowered sales and marketing  delivers returns that compound over years. 

More importantly, documented IP creates genuine business value independent of specific personnel; if you ever plan to sell your business, having fully articulated differentiating proprietary methodologies significantly increases valuation. 

Real transformation in action 

A client in the industrial water filtration business was struggling to stand out amongst the many companies that simply sold hardware – a commodity marketplace. Our client provided a much more consultative approach to finding the optimal solutions, but was struggling to articulate this. 

We not only codified their approach and named it ‘Adaptive Intelligence’,  we also extended the idea to coin the phrase ‘Performance Filtration’ which became their tagline. 

Suddenly a ‘commodity player’ stood out with a proprietary process and a proposition that elevated them above the noise and clearly conveyed their value-add to their prospects. 

Their CEO was delighted:

“I’ve been trying to capture the essence of BHF for 23 years… this has done it.” 

 Wayne Shub, Founder 

We overhauled their selling messages, website and collateral around this proposition, and their production staff committed to replicate the systematic approach in every project.  

Ready to unlock your hidden value? 

The question isn’t whether you have valuable IP – you do. The question is whether you’ll harness it before your competitors develop their own documented advantages.  

Firms that fully capture and leverage their IP pull ahead. Articulated well for the market, it becomes a powerful differentiator that commands premium pricing and attracts better clients. 

CODIFY provides a proven roadmap to transform operational excellence into competitive advantage. 

We’d be happy to discuss how CODIFY could work for your specific situation and help you identify the IP that’s hiding in plain sight within your operations. 

After all, your best practices are too valuable to remain invisible.