Recommended Readings

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.