Professionals are a special type of business (see Small and
Medium Sized Businesses). A professional works to receive payment
for an activity (as a profession), which usually requires expertise
and carries with it socially significant mores and folkways,
that is to say, behaving professionally would indicate that the
person's actions remain in accordance with specific rules,
written or unwritten, pertaining to behavior, dress, speech, etc.
By extension, the adjective professional can indicate that
someone has great expertise or skill in a craft or activity.
Expertise is the property of a person (that is, expert) or
of a system which delivers a desired result such as pertinent
information or skill. It generally implies useful and large
amounts of knowledge and action quickly (fluency). In general
terms, there are several synonyms for expertise, such as know-how,
skill, knowledge, competence, or excellence.
The great socialogist Max Weber described the tendencies of
professionals to control the market through social closure
rather than changing their business model. With the advent of
the internet, automation and sophisticated software decision
support systems (DSS) hyperlink many professionals are
experiencing the shrinking of profit margins. The fundamental
questions professionals should ask are
- Is our service delivery customer focused?
- Are we growing and packaging our know-how?
Some of the typical problems professionals are now facing are:
- Burnout due to information and cognitive overload
- Tasking time pushing out thinking time
- Significant time being spent on low level tasks
(routine tasks) rather than high level critical thinking
- An inability to differentiate themselves from
competitors
- High turnover of staff and firm partners
- Increasing competition from non-professionals
- Relatively low return on marketing investments
- Reactive (vs.proactive) work environments
Application of the iCapBiz Solution to the Professionals
A professional’s competitive advantage is knowledge based, not
information and data driven. Analogous to the assembly line innovation
championed by Henry Ford knowledge workers need to focus on the
processes and practices that enable the delivery of knowledge to the
clients. Professional firms need to be more than Craftsman.
The Path-lign Process™ methodology dramatically impacts
the following core competences of organizations:
- Improves the critical thinking of the professional;
- Leaves a record to enable collaboration,
coaching/mentoring, and improve processes, practices and critical
thinking methodology.
- Dramatically improves the productivity of the
organization through the development of a branded system that
delivers value to the customer and financial returns to the
organization;
- Elevates the organizations ability to deliver
innovative services and products.
Packaging know-how leads to partnering with the client resulting in mutual benefits such as:
- Retention of key clients ( usually 20% of
clients make 80% of a professionals income)
- Higher quality solutions that lead to
non-commoditized pricing of services
- Differentiation from commodity based
competitors
- Stress reduction
- More effective implementation and
integration of expertise into the client’s strategies
I want to know more about how iCapBiz
can apply to my business!
