Managing the Professional Service Firm

Zusatztext James L. Heskett Professor! Harvard Business School; co-author of Service Breakthroughs David Maister's name is synonymous with the latest thinking in professional service firm management. This book suggests why. Zusammenfassung International expert and consultant David Maister offers a brilliant and accessible guide to every management issue at play in professional firms. Professional firms differ from other business enterprises in two distinct ways: first! they provide highly customized services and thus cannot apply many of the management principles developed for product-based industries. Second! professional services are highly personalized! involving the skills of individuals. Such firms must therefore compete not only for clients but also for talented professionals. Drawing on more than ten years of research and consulting to these unique and creative companies! David Maister explores issues ranging from marketing and business development to multinational strategies! human resources policies to profit improvement! strategic planning to effective leadership. While these issues can be complex! Maister simplifies them by recognizing that every professional service firm in the world! regardless of size! specific profession! or country of operation! has the same mission statement: outstanding service to clients! satisfying careers for its people! and financial success for its owners. Informationen zum Autor David H. Maister! one of the world's leading authorities on the management of professional service firms! is the author of several successful books! including Managing the Professional Service Firm! True Professionalism! and Practice What You Preach! and coauthor of The Trusted Advisor. Inhaltsverzeichnis CONTENTS Acknowledgments Introduction PART ONE: BASIC MATTERS 1. A Question of Balance 2. The Professional Firm Life Cycle 3. Profitability: Health and Hygiene 4. Solving the Underdelegation Problem PART TWO: CLIENT MATTERS 5. The Practice Development Package 6. Listening to Clients 7. Quality Work Doesn't Mean Quality Service 8. A Service Quality Program 9. Marketing to Existing Clients 10. How Clients Choose 11. Attracting New Clients 12. Managing the Marketing Effort PART THREE: PEOPLE MATTERS 13. How's Your Asset? 14. How to Build Human Capital 15. The Motivation Crisis 16. On the Importance of Scheduling 17. On the Meaning of Partnership 18. Surviving the People Crisis PART FOUR: MANAGEMENT MATTERS 19. How Practice Leaders Add Value 20. How to Create a Strategy 21. Fast-Track Strategy PART FIVE: PARTNERSHIP MATTERS 22. Partner Performance Counseling 23. The Art of Partner Compensation 24. Patterns in Partner Compensation 25. Pie-Splitting 26. Partnership Governance PART SIX: MULTISITE MATTERS 27. The One-Firm Firm 28. Hunters and Farmers 29. Making the Network Work 30. Creating the Collaborative Firm 31. Coordinating Industry Specialty Groups PART SEVEN: FINAL THOUGHTS 32. Asset Management References and Sources Index ...

James L. Heskett Professor, Harvard Business School; co-author of Service Breakthroughs David Maister's name is synonymous with the latest thinking in professional service firm management. This book suggests why.

Auteur

David H. Maister, one of the world's leading authorities on the management of professional service firms, is the author of several successful books, including Managing the Professional Service Firm, True Professionalism, and Practice What You Preach, and coauthor of The Trusted Advisor.

Texte du rabat

Available for the first time in paperback, the quintessential manual for managers of accounting, legal, consulting, architectural, public relations, and other service-related companies. "The professional service firm is the best model for tomorrow's organization in any industry. When it comes to understanding these firms, David Maister has no peers".--Tom Peters. coauthor of "In Search of Excellence".

Résumé
International expert and consultant David Maister offers a brilliant and accessible guide to every management issue at play in professional firms.

Professional firms differ from other business enterprises in two distinct ways: first, they provide highly customized services and thus cannot apply many of the management principles developed for product-based industries. Second, professional services are highly personalized, involving the skills of individuals. Such firms must therefore compete not only for clients but also for talented professionals.

Drawing on more than ten years of research and consulting to these unique and creative companies, David Maister explores issues ranging from marketing and business development to multinational strategies, human resources policies to profit improvement, strategic planning to effective leadership. While these issues can be complex, Maister simplifies them by recognizing that “every professional service firm in the world, regardless of size, specific profession, or country of operation, has the same mission statement: outstanding service to clients, satisfying careers for its people, and financial success for its owners.”

Échantillon de lecture
CHAPTER 1

A QUESTION OF BALANCE

One of the most interesting discoveries in my consulting work has been the fact that (apparently) every professional service firm in the world has the same mission statement, regardless of the firm´s size, specific profession, or country of operation. With varying refinements of language, the mission of most professional firms is:

To deliver outstanding client service; to provide fulfilling careers and professional satisfaction for our people; and to achieve financial success so that we can reward ourselves and grow.

The commonality of this mission does not detract from its value. Simply put, every professional firm must satisfy these three goals of "service, satisfaction, and success" if it is to survive. Management of a professional firm requires a delicate balancing act between the demands of the client marketplace, the realities of the people marketplace (the market for staff), and the firm´s economic ambitions.

Many factors play a role in bringing these goals into harmony, but one has a preeminent position: the ratio of junior, middle-level, and senior staff in the firm´s organization, referred to here as the firm´s leverage. To see the importance of this factor, we shall briefly examine, in turn, its relation to the three goals of the firm.

LEVERAGE AND THE CLIENT MARKETPLACE

The required shape of the organization (the relative mix of juniors, managers, and seniors) is primarily determined by (or rather, as we shall see, should be determined by) the skill requirements of its work: the mix of senior-level, middle-level, and junior-level tasks involved in the projects that the firm undertakes. Consider three kinds of client work: Brains, Grey Hair, and Procedure projects.

In the first type (Brains), the client´s problem is at the forefront of professional or technical knowledge, or at least is of extreme complexity. The key elements of this type of professional service are creativity, innovation, and the pioneering of new approaches, concepts or techniques: in effect, new solutions to new problems. The firm that targets this market will be attempting to sell its services on the basis of the high professional craft of its staff. In essence, their appeal to their market is, "Hire us because we´re smart."

Brains projects usually involve highly skilled and highly paid professionals. Few procedures are routinizable: Each project is "one-off." Accordingly, the opportunities for leveraging the top professionals with juniors are relatively limited. Even though such projects may involve significant data collection and analysis activities (normally performed by juniors), even these activities cannot be clearly specified in advance and require …