Expertise Marketplace - Professional Service Firm Marketing Blog

Are innovation and professional services incompatible?

I had a blast yesterday morning talking to Eric Mankin about innovation in the legal services arena.  (Eric is the Executive Director of Babson College's very dynamic Center for Innovation and Corporate Entrepreneurship -- check it out).

Many people assume that innovation narrowly means changing the product or service into something different.  Well, it ain't necessarily so! 

For a law firm, or businesses in architecture, accounting, management consulting, or beyond, innovation can and does involve adapting and changing internal processes, organizational structures, service delivery approaches and more. 

Eric explained that his research will also incorporate how law firms innovate in context to other firms in their own sector.  The main point here is that too many PSFs think about innovation only relative to their company's current state of doing business.  If you compared PSF innovation to other sectors, we'd look backwards indeed.  If you are in a manufacturing company, you might throw your hands up and say, "Well that's not innovative!" 

But it's not enough to consider "doing something new" only against your firm's own past approaches.  Instead, you should consider how this innovation will impact your company's competitive positioning in context to its rivals.  What might be the marketplace result of this innovation? 

In that way, innovation moves from an act of internal convenience to an act of competitive advantage.  Are there examples out there about how professional service firms are embracing innovation as an avenue toward market leadership?  Send them along, and I'll write about them. 

Diversifying professional services -- folly or genius?

Who would've thought that a rubber tire company would score a huge marketplace hit by diversifying into travel guides?  Think Michelin.  Think IBM and Linux.  Intel and its Centrino chips.  The latest issue of strategy + business features these and other great examples of how companies can succeed dramatically by not sticking to their knitting. 

The article "Complementary Genius" (reg may be required) touts the wisdom of thinking about portfolio offerings as "complements" to a company's core competencies.  It offers five great questions that are highly relevant for professional service firms, as they get better about considering their offerings through a service portfolio lens:

1. What complements are currently constraining demand in our markets?
2. What new product might boost demand for our core offerings?
3. Would our customers buy more if they had better information?
4. Would we learn valuable lessons by innovating in complements?
5. Do we have competitors whose fortunes are tightly tied to the price of complements?

Movers and shakers

Take a look at the new Business Week online piece profiling 25 Innovators.  Each Champion of Innovation features a great picture and a fun quick-read paragraph of the reasons why BW picked them. 

Interestingly, the majority are women.  They look like they are having the time of their professional lives.