Why professional service organizations fail!
- kdthompson12686
- Apr 30, 2021
- 6 min read
Updated: May 20, 2021
Why do so many professional service organizations consistently fail to achieve their objectives? After all, we’ve been taught that great professional service teams depend upon the key levers of people, process, and tools (including technology). However, that’s only part of the solution if you are trying to build a high-performing team.
The Professional Services Ecosystem™ takes a more holistic view of what makes a professional services organization successful.
Over the past 30 years, I’ve successfully led PS organizations that have delivered world-class NPS, experienced exceptional revenue growth, and achieved industry-leading profitability, all through the efforts of an engaged, high-performing team. I’ve done this in the IT consulting space and with PS teams that are part of SaaS organizations. What I’ve learned through these experiences is that while people, process, and tools are important, so much so that I call them The Triumvirate, they are only part of the story for driving true success.
The Professional Services Ecosystem™
To truly succeed in delivering world-class results it takes more than just people, process, and tools. The Triumvirate is a critical component of what services you offer and how you deliver those services, however, they miss a few key areas. The Professional Services Ecosystem™ (PSE) takes a more holistic view of what makes a professional services organization successful. The PSE considers not only The Triumvirate, but also the client, the gathering and use of data, and the culture of the PS organization. The PSE looks like this:
The Client – must be the focal point of any professional services organization.
The Triumvirate (People, Process, Tools) – represents the key operational levers a professional services organization can pull to drive change and deliver services and solutions.
The Data Repository – the mass of data captured throughout the organization which feeds insights and change.
The Continuous Improvement Culture – the grassroots behaviors, beliefs, and knowledge that the most successful professional service organizations operate under.
The key to this ecosystem is that all of the components are within the control or primary influence of the PS team itself. While external dependencies still exist like cross-functional goals, budgets, technology, and actual deals sold, the PS team has authority over these areas to make substantive improvements that will drive the overall success of the ecosystem.
The Client
The centerpiece of any PS organization, the client is the consumer of the services, the raison d’etre. The client and how the PS organization interacts with them, informs all other aspects of the PSE. Too many PS organizations lose sight of the client in the way they operate. To become successful the client must become the lens through which all other aspects of the PSE are weighed and leveraged.
To become successful the client must become the lens through which all other aspects of the PSE are weighed and leveraged.
That does not mean you let the client walk all over you. The client is not always right. Poor clients, just like poor employees, crappy systems, and broken processes should be jettisoned. The key is recognizing a naturally poor client when you have one versus when you have made one. We will dive deep into clients and why I believe that the client is not the company that bought your services, as much as it is the individuals who will implement and use your solutions. Additionally, we’ll look at holding clients accountable and the positive impact of expectation setting.
The Triumvirate
People, process, and tools are The Triumvirate which is brought to bear to deliver solutions to the client. It has been long held that these three sides of a triangle are the primary levers that must be kept in balance to ensure you are delivering successful solutions. While to some extent true, The Triumvirate is only of value if it successfully helps fulfill the needs of your clients.
People, process, and tools are The Triumvirate which is brought to bear to deliver solutions to the client.
We will talk about numerous people topics, from hiring to offboarding and everything in between. We will also want to dig deep into process design and leveraging that approach to build a continuous improvement culture. Finally, we’ll delve into tools and those that can become part of the day-to-day processes that your team uses to facilitate all aspects of the PSE.
The Data Repository
The Data Repository holds data collected from all other parts of the PSE so that it can be used for decisioning. PS organizations collect data about their operations in a multitude of forms and the ability to exploit that data for insights is key to a healthy PSE. To be a successful PS organization you must leverage data, collected throughout your operation, to understand and refine your business practices through that lens of the client.
PS organizations that do not have effective data gathering tools or have them but are not effectively using them to their advantage are depending on intuition, luck, and hope for success.
A successful PSE is one where the entire organization understands its operation quantitatively and qualitatively. PS organizations that do not have effective data gathering tools or have them but are not effectively using them to their advantage are depending on intuition, luck, and hope for success. This is often how businesses start out but to thrive, decisioning through data is critical to building a healthy PSE. Data should inform key metrics and be the backbone of any improvement strategies. We will share ways to capture data and slice and dice it for meaningful insights. After all, you cannot fix what you do not measure, and you can’t measure without data!
The Continuous Improvement Culture
Culture is the knowledge, beliefs, and behaviors by which the PS organization operates. Often overlooked, building a culture of continuous improvement is one of the key components of a successful professional services organization. A culture where the entire organization is focused on bettering the way they operate is, dare I say, the secret sauce. It cannot be that only the managers are looking for ways to improve, it has to be every PS employee, sharing informed, iterative refinements that truly improve the entire organization.
A culture where the entire organization is focused on bettering the way they operate is, dare I say, the secret sauce.
A Continuous Improvement Culture is one where everyone in the organization:
receives and understands key performance indicators,
identifies problem areas,
refines and improves the problem areas,
socializes and implements the improvements,
and ensures control metrics are in place to track success.
Without a culture of continuous improvement, the ecosystem cannot evolve and stay healthy. Too many organizations become successful but cannot sustain it, regardless of the levers they pull, and their culture is often at fault. We will talk about the way to build a PS ecosystem that forms a continuous improvement culture as a natural output, as well as ways to foster and grow that culture for the long haul.
The Professional Services Ecosystem™
Together, The Client, The Triumvirate, The Data Repository, and The Continuous Improvement Culture interact to become The Professional Services Ecosystem™, represented by this icon. With the client at the center of everything we do, we are constantly gathering data about their experiences with us and their success. Client data informs how we leverage our people, process, and tools, The Triumvirate, to deliver something unique in the market holistically and efficiently. We gather data from the client and The Triumvirate to observe, understand, refine, and implement improvements that continuously add value to our clients. With each refinement, we depend on our key success metrics to ensure the ecosystem as a whole is healthy and thriving. This iterative process becomes the very culture by which our organization operates as every member of the team looks for ways to improve the experience.
Together, The Client, The Triumvirate, The Data Repository, and The Continuous Improvement Culture interact to become The Professional Services Ecosystem™
Throughout the coming posts, we will decompose each of these four parts and share ideas around how to be successful in every aspect of your own PSE. I am in hopes you will also share some of your own experiences and thoughts on how we can improve on this model so that this becomes a valuable tool for all of us as we work together to improve the professional services experience for all clients.
For over 30 years I’ve worked with and in professional service organizations in the IT services and SaaS spaces. In that time, and with a lot of help from some tremendous people, we’ve developed a repeatable process whereby these organizations have enjoyed tremendous success delivering high-quality solutions to our clients. The Professional Services Ecosystem™ is a key construct of that success.
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