How to Get Started in Social Media for Art League City
PPT presentation of Marketing Professional Services In Asia Seminar at Cim HK Aug 09
1. Marketing Professional Services in
Asia
Robert Sawhney
Managing Director
SRC Associates Ltd
Chartered Institute of Marketing HK
19th August 2009
1
www.srchk.com
2. Part I – where are we?
Professional Service Firms (PSF) are
Different
• Product resides in the structural, social, and intellectual
capital of firm
• Key marketer is the professional who interacts with client
• Differentiation is harder to achieve – ‘we do better audits’
• Branding at the individual, practice group, and firm level
• Marketing and BD coupled together – misunderstanding?
• Professionals don’t take easily to being ‘managed’, strategy
bottom up and involves all or no one (are they interested)?
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3. And the difficulty of…
• Fundamental misunderstanding by professionals
of what marketing is
• Growth of 10% per annum, who needs it?
• Strong resistance by seniors
• Belief in conflict with professional ethics and
association guidelines
• Combined role of producer/manager
• Short term orientation and lack of longer term
strategic thinking
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4. Case study – one of the largest US law
firms in the world:
New branding in HK
• Strategy driven from US ‘HQ’
• Hired a consumer goods branding consultancy
• Campaign was almost totally externally
oriented
• Staff heard about it when new branding
unveiled at company briefing
• No resonance or affinity = low impact
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5. Further problems in Asia: cultural
differences and association guidelines
• Advertising: research shows that Asian consumers much less accepting of
professionals who advertise
• Research also shows that the professionals themselves in HK more averse
to marketing than consumers
• Value pricing: various work requires time sheet records for tax purposes
• Merit vs lock step compensation systems
• Service quality-meaning and measurement
• CRM – building relationships
• Managing alliances between firms of different national cultural
backgrounds
• Associations lack of practice management strategy know how and
guidance to member firms
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6. So where are we now?
• PSF marketing is already in the mature stage in the US.
The Bates decision in 1976 was a key factor in this area.
There are probably hundreds of firms that specialize in
professional services marketing and PSF’s adopt
marketing openly
• The state of the profession is still probably in the
growth stage in Europe as barriers to marketing
activities have been slow to come down
• In HK and Asia, PSF marketing is very likely in the
embryonic stage as most professional associations still
limit activities and the understanding of marketing as a
business process is still quite limited
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7. Part II
Marketing and client value
• Firstly – what marketing is not:
• Promotion
• Clever logo and new brand name
• Run by the marketing/BD people
• Something that can be turned on and off
according to prevailing conditions
• In its entirety, something that cannot be
measured using ROI
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8. Cont’d
• What it is:
• A business process about creating client value
• A firm culture that has the most significant
impact on firm performance
• The guiding force for strategy and strategic
management
• The bed rock of firm performance (market
orientation)
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9. What Do Clients Want?: the value they
seek
17 factors that drive law firm success
• Client focus.
• Commitment to help by suggesting strategies and demonstrating interest.
• Understanding the client’s business.
• Providing value for the dollar – showing money and time saved.
• Breadth of services.
• Advise on business issues.
• Regional reputation.
• Unprompted Communication
• Bringing together national resources.
• Keeping clients informed.
• Show skill in legal expertise, experience and outcomes.
• Quality work, show attention to detail.
• Ability to deal with unexpected changes.
• Handling problems quickly and effectively.
• Meeting client-imposed scope of work and deadlines.
• Anticipating client needs.
• Having international capabilities.
(Source: BTI consulting: The survey of client service performance, US)
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10. How does marketing fit?
• A market orientation is a firm culture that
stresses three interrelated perspectives:
• A client orientation
• A competitor orientation
• Inter-functional coordination
Numerous studies show it to have the most
significant impact on firm performance
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11. Bed rock of firm performance
Client value, satisfaction and firm
performance
Market based strategy and strategy implementation (based
around the 17 factors)
Client
orientation
Competitor
orientation
Inter-
functional
coordination
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12. Still more than you think!
• David Maister in his book: Practice What You
Preach, studied a number of PSFs using
rigorous quantitative methods.
• He found in particular, 9 factors that were
strongly linked to PSF financial performance
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14. Cont’d
• In fact, what he found is not new
• But was a revelation for PSFs
• He expanded on what is known as the service
profit chain
• This idea shows that happy staff make happy
clients which makes money!
• This revolves around strong values, clear
direction, and the right culture
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15. Now You See
• This is what we mean by adopting a marketing
culture
• Peter Drucker said years ago that firms have
only 2 functions: marketing and innovation,
the rest are costs
• But when he said marketing, this is what he
meant. The adoption of the marketing
concept into the very fabric of a firm
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16. Case Study: the acceptance of value
pricing for CPA firm
• One of the major factors that has professional
associations soul searching, as well as senior
partners, and causes the most dissatisfaction
among PSF juniors is billable hours
• Billable hour requirements and time sheet
completion treats people like cogs in a machine
• Focus on efficiency instead of effectiveness
• For clients, time spent on a job often has nothing
to do with value
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17. Cont’d
• Harrex Group, NZ (source: J of Accountancy,
2008)
• Founded in 2007 by Brendan Harrex, first chief
value officer at his former firm
• He says focus on time and cost only creates
illusion of managing a PSF
• What really matters is value creation
• No more hourly billing, a change of culture
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18. Cont’d
• Key Performance Indicators for Harrex:
• * Ability to think strategically on behalf of clients
• * Client Communication
• * Delegation
• * Turnaround Time
• * Client Feedback
• * Effective Listening and Communication Skills
• * Knowledge Elicitation/Coaching
• * Risk Taking, Innovation and Creativity
• * Continuous Learning
• * Passion, Attitude and Commitment
• * Team Player
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19. Thank You!
• If you want any of the full references for work
cited or have any questions, please feel free to
contact me:
• bob@srchk.com, www.srchk.com
• Blog: www.marketingasia.typepad.com
• Twitter: http://twitter.com/robertsawhney
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