Building Professional Services: The Sirens' Song [Hardcover]

Thomas E. Lah (Author), Steve O'Connor (Author), Mitchel Peterson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 22, 2002 | ISBN-10: 0130353892 | ISBN-13: 978-0130353894 | Edition: 1

Building Professional Services is the first comprehensive guide to creating professional services organizations, managing them to maturity, and delivering both quality services and superior margins. It covers strategy, tactics, and operations; identifies key success factors; and offers expert guidance on professional services in "product-centric" companies. Coverage includes planning, metrics, solutions development, organization, project delivery, infrastructure, and more.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

How to build a winning professional services organization.

Companies worldwide are discovering outstanding growth opportunities in professional services-but building professional services organizations at "product-centric" firms can be extremely challenging. Now, three leading experts present a comprehensive guide to creating professional services organizations, managing them to maturity, and delivering both quality services and superior margins. Building Professional Services introduces a complete, practical framework for delivering the full spectrum of professional services—from support and education services to managed, consulting, and productized services.

• Managing the professional services business at every stage of its lifecycle
• Focusing on the key factors that drive success: revenue, references, and repeatability
• Responding to the unique challenges faced by professional services in product-based companies
• Aligning services with the rest of the organization
• Establishing effective metrics and business review processes
• The four phases of building a successful professional services organization
• Frameworks for organization, project delivery, solutions development, and operational infrastructure
• Customer engagement models and workflows

Drawing on their experience working with leading technology service providers, the authors cover every aspect of professional services: strategy, tactics, and operations. From financial models to customer relationships, Building Professional Services will help you transform the promise of services into a profitable reality.

"I can't imagine anyone starting a professional services organization without first referencing this work."

—Dave Nestic,
President, NezTech Corporation

"This book is a significant contribution and a practical guide to a fast-evolving frontier. With clearly expressed views and recommendations, it will stimulate both thought and action."

—David H. Maister, co-author of First Among Equals

"Extraordinary insight into the issues faced when building a professional services business unit at a product company."

—Kenneth Coleman, Sr.
Vice President of Silicon Graphics
and retired CEO of K&S Solutions

Harris Kern's Enterprise Computing Institute SeriesSolutions for IT Professionals.

About the Author

THOMAS E. LAH has more than 15 years of experience in IT and consulting. As Director of Solutions Engineering at Silicon Graphics, he led a team responsible for developing and launching a professional services consulting organization on a global basis and growing it from zero to $150 million in four years.

STEVE O'CONNOR has held both business and IT services leadership roles for over 20 years. He served as Vice President for Professional Services at SGI and before that, as SGI's Chief Information Officer.

MITCHEL PETERSON has held a variety of financial and operational roles for more than 18 years. Most recently, he was the Senior Manager of Strategic Planning andCommunications for SGI's Professional Services Organization and was responsible for developing and implementing strategic and tactical programs.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 384 pages
• Publisher: Prentice Hall; 1 edition (June 22, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0130353892
• ISBN-13: 978-0130353894
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 7.1 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #454,928 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Thomas E. Lah is the lead author of the well-received books "Building Professional Services: The Sirens' Song (Prentice Hall, June 2002) and Mastering Professional Services (Professional Services Press, 2005). Thomas currently serves as the Executive Director of the Technology Professional Services Association (www.tpsaonline.com). He also teaches an MBA class at The Ohio State University focused on tactics to build and manage service organizations. He has consulted with multiple technology companies to establish or improve their professional services organization. His upcoming book is titled "Bridging the Services Chasm: Aligning services strategy to maximize product success." For more information on Thomas, visit www.thomaslah.com.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Finally!, June 21, 2002

By 

Mike Tarrani "www.tarrani.com" (Deltona, FL USA) - See all my reviews
(COMMUNITY FORUM 04)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Building Professional Services: The Sirens' Song (Hardcover)

This is a book that fills a sorely needed gap in the computer consulting industry, and is especially valuable for start-up consulting companies, established companies that want to achieve higher profitability, and for internal IT organizations that are seeking a way to move from a cost center to a profit center.

Regardless of your goals or motivations, the first two chapters helps you to clarify your objectives, decide on the appropriate business model and mission statement, and introduces key concepts that will be used throughout the book. One of the most effective techniques in this section of the book is the way the authors lead you through framing your mission and goals and employing a service alignment risk factor to test the clarity of your mission and how it aligns to other business processes. This is especially important if technical services is not your core business.

Chapters 3 and 4 are, in my opinion, the heart of the book because they address revenue and profitability, and organizational structure - two areas with which many companies struggle. The information in these chapters will show you what you need to do to become and remain profitable, as well as how to best organize your resources to deliver in accordance with your chosen business model. For start-ups Chapter 3 provides an excellent framework for business plan pro formas. Chapter 5, Selling, thoroughly covers the critical success factors and metrics for selling services.

In chapters 6 through 8 services delivery, productizing and promotion are given the same thorough and insightful treatment. Of particular value is the customer engagement workflow that is provided in Chapter 11, and the four phases of professional services given in chapter 12. The phases provide a path by establishing basic implementation services as a service offering, then building upon these to provide integration services, consulting services and productized services - each phase represents an increase in what you offer customers (external or internal). For each of the phases the authors address the following factors: value proposition, profitability triangle focus, critical skills, required operational infrastructure, target mix, revenue growth rate, target gross margin and target operating profit.

I like the way that these (and all of the chapters) end with sample budgets and issues to watch, and the key financial models provided in Appendix D.

While this book is, in my opinion, the best starting point for anyone who is involved in establishing and managing technical services or starting a consulting company, "PSA: Professional Services Automation" by Rudolf Melik, et al is the second book you should read. That book complements this one, and also covers automating the professional services organization after it has been established.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A good life boat for a PS Organization in a Product Company, November 19, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Building Professional Services: The Sirens' Song (Hardcover)

I bought the book because I needed to startup a software engineering group within our established PS organization. The book provided very good insight in how a PS organization should run within a Product Company. It provide good food for thought in understanding the difference between a standalone PS organization and one attached to a Product Company. The content opened some eyes within our organization and reset some expectations. The book also validated some of the processes and focus of the existing PS organization. If you are starting up a PS organization from the ground up I recommend this book. If you have a PS organization already in place, within a product company, I also recommend this book to validate your current focus.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent pragmatic approach, January 22, 2004

By 

Steffi & Lutz Vorneweg (France) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Building Professional Services: The Sirens' Song (Hardcover)

This book as become my day-to-day bible to managing a professional service division within our product-oriented company. If you have your objectives and strategy clear, this book will help you getting organized with the tactics.