The Professional Service Firm - The Managers Guide to Maximising Profit & Value
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More About This Title The Professional Service Firm - The Managers Guide to Maximising Profit & Value
English
"This is a terrific book and the best I have read on the subject. Scott covers the economics and management issues in professional services with great authority and insight." Peter Doyle, Professor of Marketing, Warwick Business School
"What I find generally so praiseworthy is the balance of theory and practical application that runs throughout the book. Clearly, Mark Scott is someone well versed in the whole range of management sciences, yet able to ground this perspective in the world of real experience. This book accomplishes this in a natural, coherent and very readable way." John Zweig, CEO Specialist Communications Businesses, WPP Group USA Inc.
Spanning a diverse range of activities from accountancy to marketing communications, the professional services industry now accounts for up to 17% of employment in the Western economies and had worldwide revenues in 1999 of around $800 billion. It is continuing to experience one of the most spectacular growth rates of any Western-dominated industry and is progressively cornering an ever larger share of industrial value added.
Yet, it remains one of the most unanalysed and undocumented areas of business acitivity. It has been subjected to little scrutiny and received minimal attention from the capital markets. This book aims to change all that!
The Professional Services Firm is intended for three key audiences:
* managers and owners of professional services firms who want to understand the strategic options they face and how to improve their financial performance.
* investors who want to understand how they can exploit the largely untapped and misunderstood opportunity the industry holds.
* managers in industrial and service sectors who want to understand how to emulate the two critical skills mastered by PSFs - hiring, developing and retaining the best intellectual talent available and exploiting collective knowledge to achieve differentiation and to-die-for margins.
This seminal book provides not only the first real insight into the structure, strategy and economics of this huge and prosperous industry but also an excellent guide to understanding the challenges and opportunities it faces. Mark C. Scott's analysis of the professional services industry is an indispensible guide for anyone involved in these types of companies wishing to maximize performance and profitability.
"What I find generally so praiseworthy is the balance of theory and practical application that runs throughout the book. Clearly, Mark Scott is someone well versed in the whole range of management sciences, yet able to ground this perspective in the world of real experience. This book accomplishes this in a natural, coherent and very readable way." John Zweig, CEO Specialist Communications Businesses, WPP Group USA Inc.
Spanning a diverse range of activities from accountancy to marketing communications, the professional services industry now accounts for up to 17% of employment in the Western economies and had worldwide revenues in 1999 of around $800 billion. It is continuing to experience one of the most spectacular growth rates of any Western-dominated industry and is progressively cornering an ever larger share of industrial value added.
Yet, it remains one of the most unanalysed and undocumented areas of business acitivity. It has been subjected to little scrutiny and received minimal attention from the capital markets. This book aims to change all that!
The Professional Services Firm is intended for three key audiences:
* managers and owners of professional services firms who want to understand the strategic options they face and how to improve their financial performance.
* investors who want to understand how they can exploit the largely untapped and misunderstood opportunity the industry holds.
* managers in industrial and service sectors who want to understand how to emulate the two critical skills mastered by PSFs - hiring, developing and retaining the best intellectual talent available and exploiting collective knowledge to achieve differentiation and to-die-for margins.
This seminal book provides not only the first real insight into the structure, strategy and economics of this huge and prosperous industry but also an excellent guide to understanding the challenges and opportunities it faces. Mark C. Scott's analysis of the professional services industry is an indispensible guide for anyone involved in these types of companies wishing to maximize performance and profitability.
English
Mark C. Scott is Executive Vice President of Lake Capital Management, a principal investment group specialising in investing in professional service firms. He formerly held the same position at Lighthouse Global Network, a global marketing services group. He was previously an Operations Director at WPP Group plc and prior to this has worked for a number of years as a management consultant in Europe and the USA. He received his MBA from Harvard Business School and was educated at Oxford and Cambridge Universities. He is the author of Value Drivers and Reinspiring the Corporation.
English
Preface
About the Author
Introduction
The Inexorable Rise of the Professional Service Firm
The sceptical investor
Learning from PSFs
Segmenting the Professional Services Industry
Consolidation versus specialization
Life stages
Determining the Relative Attractiveness of Segments of the Professional Services Industry
Nature and level of competition
Growth and cyclicality
Entry and exit barriers
Client dependency
Recruitment and retention patterns
Threat of service substitution
Impact of government activity
Pulling it all together
Generic Strategies for Professional Service Firms
Global service integration of bundling
Vertical integration
Global versus local specialization
Sector versus product specialization
Executing a strategy
How Do You Tell How a PSF is Doing?
The balance sheet
The P&L
It's not just the financials...
Understanding the Underlying Economics of a PSF
Organizational structure
Utilization
Charge-our rates
Fee capacity and resource allocation
Identifying Whether a PSF is Positioned to Maximize Returns to Shareholders
Client strategy
Service mix
Pricing strategy
Process efficiency and internal structures
Recruitment, incentives and career management
Financial and process control
Corporate Finance and Valuation of PSFs
What keeps potential investors awake at night?
Investment strategies and pricing
The Future for Professional Service Firms
Select Bibliography
Index
About the Author
Introduction
The Inexorable Rise of the Professional Service Firm
The sceptical investor
Learning from PSFs
Segmenting the Professional Services Industry
Consolidation versus specialization
Life stages
Determining the Relative Attractiveness of Segments of the Professional Services Industry
Nature and level of competition
Growth and cyclicality
Entry and exit barriers
Client dependency
Recruitment and retention patterns
Threat of service substitution
Impact of government activity
Pulling it all together
Generic Strategies for Professional Service Firms
Global service integration of bundling
Vertical integration
Global versus local specialization
Sector versus product specialization
Executing a strategy
How Do You Tell How a PSF is Doing?
The balance sheet
The P&L
It's not just the financials...
Understanding the Underlying Economics of a PSF
Organizational structure
Utilization
Charge-our rates
Fee capacity and resource allocation
Identifying Whether a PSF is Positioned to Maximize Returns to Shareholders
Client strategy
Service mix
Pricing strategy
Process efficiency and internal structures
Recruitment, incentives and career management
Financial and process control
Corporate Finance and Valuation of PSFs
What keeps potential investors awake at night?
Investment strategies and pricing
The Future for Professional Service Firms
Select Bibliography
Index
