Recommended Readings

This list of recommended readings is specifically designed for technology professional services executives who want to expand their skills, deepen their insights, and improve their thought leadership.

Service Strategy

Title	Author(s)	Key Concepts	Comments
SERVICE MANAGEMENT
	Thomas E. Lah, Mitch Peterson, Steve O'Connor, Harris Kern	Creating professional services organizations, Managing them to maturity, Delivering both quality services and superior margins	Introduces a complete, practical framework for delivering the full spectrum of professional services--from support and education services to managed, consulting, and productized services.
	Thomas E. Lah	Services Strategy Design, Practical tools and techniques to a manage technical professional services organization	The first book to guide a company through the process of designing a viable services strategy that complements a broader company portfolio.
	James A. Alexander, Mark W. Hordes	Services Strategy, Best Practices, Aligning Services Strategy with Business Strategy	This is a research-based, to-the-point business book that executives and managers can use to analyze, align, and adopt their organization to a client-centered, services-led enterprise.
	Christopher Lovelock	Solid overview of helpful frameworks for managing a services business. Great insights on: -Service Quality -Service Delivery Systems -Creating customer value	Book is heavily weighted on the “marketing” and “customer experience” side of the equation. Very little information on how to structure and scale delivery capabilities.
	David Maister	Stakeholder needs Leverage & Profitability Profitability Tactics	A wonderful introduction to the challenges of managing a service firm.
	Rudolf Melik	Project Management, Project Governance, Workforce Planning	Disciplines, technology, and tools required to execute projects and initiatives in today’s business climate.
	Geoffrey Moore	Concepts: Foundational Models, Managing Innovation, Managing Inertia	An in-depth analysis of strategies for competitive advantage and case study on Cisco Systems’ approach to innovation.
MARKETING PROFESSIONAL SERVICES
	Mike Moser	Brand Attributes Brand Personality Brand Cohesion Brand Roadmap	Provides a step-by-step process for defining your brand positioning.
	Philip Kotler	Services Marketing Marketing Mix Pricing Strategies	Introduction to the activities associated with marketing services. Geared toward traditional professional service firms such as Law, but still contains concepts applicable to marketing other types of professional services.
PARTNER and CHANNELS
	Neil Rackham, Lawrence Friedman, Richard Ruff	Three ingredients to a successful partnership Partner selection	Discusses the three ingredients required for partnerships to be successful. Very relevant to professional services organizations that are partnering to deliver complete solutions to customers.
	Lawrence Friedman, Timothy Furey	Channel costs Channel attributes Channel capacity Channel mix	Practical framework for assessing what channel mix is appropriate for the services organization.

Service Structure

Title	Author(s)	Key Concepts	Comments
SELLING SERVICES
	Kevin Davis	The eight roles in the buy-learning wheel	Provides a great model to understand the various roles a consultant plays for the customer.
	Harry Beckwith	Pointers on positioning and selling services
	Gerald Zaltman	Insights on how to ask the right questions when doing market research.
METRICS
	Robert S. Kaplan David P. Norton	Four point balanced scorecard	Introduces four categories that a business should create metrics around: Financial, Customer, Internal Processes, Learning
SERVICE DEVELOPMENT and IP MANAGEMENT
	Leif Edvinsson,	Hidden sources of value Intellectual Capital financial equation	Discusses the three ingredients required for partnerships to be successful. Very relevant to professional services organizations that are partnering to deliver complete solutions to customers.
	Steven C. Wheelwright & Kim B. Clark	Definition of effective product development life cycle.	Opportunity to apply best practice product development techniques to services development.
	Robert Brinkerhoff	Methodology for identifying and documenting how your most successful employees are getting the job done.	The SCM approach is practical and relevant to any service organization that is attempting to document and justify best practice methodologies.

Service Culture

Title	Author(s)	Key Concepts	Comments

	Clayton M. Christensen	The impact company structure and culture has on incubating new strategies	Findings are directly applicable to what happens when product-centric companies attempt to incubate a professional services business.
	Louis Gerstner, Jr.	Discusses the three key challenges of strategy, structure, and culture.	Gerstner’s perspective of IBM’s transition from a product-centric company to solution-centric. Wonderful read.
	George Labovitz Victor Rosansky	Vertical and Horizontal Alignment	Discusses how to align company efforts, from top down.