Service Delivery

D. Michael McDowell

To live through an impossible situation, you dont need the reflexes of a Grand Prix driver, the muscles of Hercules, the mind of Einstein. You simply need to know what to do (next).

-Anthony Greenback, The Book of Survival1

Successfully developing and delivering professional services present a unique combination of challenges and opportunities. Meeting these challenges and seizing these opportunities depend on the personal abilities of the professionals involved and the relationships they maintain with their clients. Experience, expertise, and reputation all play a part in the professional services firms ability to build and sustain a successful practice.

If success were solely a function of personal and professional capabilities, all highly skilled professionals in practice would thrive. Clients would flock to them. Unfortunately, its not that simple. There are countless examples of well-qualified law firms, medical practices, advertising agencies, public relations specialists, and accounting firms of every size that have failed to sustain success.

This chapter focuses on important issues affecting the successful development and delivery of professional services from a strategic management perspective. It offers a systematic approach to success that can be applied and sustained across a broad spectrum of professional services businesses-large and small, for-profit, and not-for-profit.

This chapter describes how a professional services firm can move from simply thinking strategically to becoming strategic in the manner in which the firm develops and delivers professional services and why becoming

strategically managed is more critical than ever before as the marketplace becomes increasingly competitive. This chapter looks at developing a culture that embraces strategic management, which in turn ties together the business continuum of the firm, including the administrative, operational, and service and business development activities.

Overall, the chapter addresses these questions:

What are the characteristics of a strategically managed practice?

How does strategic management drive process improvement?

How does process improvement lead to the successful delivery of services or, in other words, the sustainable success of the professional practice?

Why This Topic Is Important

The United States continues to move toward an economy based on professional services. Manufacturing jobs are being replaced by service jobs at a very high rate. This growth in the service industries is fueled by a number of important factors:

The barriers to competitive entry are minimal.

Initial capital commitments are less than in manufacturing-based industries.

Advancements in technology have enhanced the professionals ability to access information.

Experience is no longer the dominant characteristic of a successful professional that it once was.

The growing senior segment of our population has increased the demand for professional services.

But with growth in the professional services industries comes a remarkable increase in the risk of failure. Professional services firms are under greater pressure than ever before and have no choice but to:

Differentiate themselves from their competition.

Understand the expectations of their target market and adapt to meet these expectations.

Deliver clearly demonstrated value.

Increase the quality of their services while not increasing the price.

Shorten their service delivery time.