Leading Service Firms - Essay Example

Leading Service Firms Nearly all the professional service firms varying in nature from engineering firms to high tech and management consultants, advertisement agencies, accountancies, etc, compete by trying not to fail rather than by trying to win. They are engaged in a never-ending game of catch-up. They move quickly to adapt the latest tools. They rush to enter what seem to be lucrative new arenas. They ensure that they sell what their competitor sells and try to get competitive advantage over them by including new services or enhancing the features of existing ones. They rarely allow themselves the time to try to gain an understanding of the entire marketplace context in which they compete, this means sometimes while marketing a new service to gain competitive advantage, they often overlook the research part and just introduces the service, which sometimes gives loss (Suzzane, 2004:4). Today every service firm tries to get a commanding position so that it can by having range of services, competitive distinctions, and innovations that can dictate the particular service industry in which it is competing. And it should become the future trendsetter (Suzzane, 2004:8). There are three building blocks of a professional service firm's market-driven infrastructure: Looking out It features three practices or methods that allow professional service firms to get an early look at client, competitor, and marketplace shifts: 1. Studying a firm's clients using outside qualitative and quantitative research 2. Researching the market using economic forecasts and trend analyses 3. Researching competitors by gathering competitive intelligence. Each of these looking out techniques serves to give a professional service firm a reliable sounding board on which to evaluate new opportunities or threats. Collectively, they help a professional service firm to develop concrete grounding for future business decisions and new strategies (Suzzane, 2004:15). Digging deeper The professional service sector, whose very foundation is based on intellectual capital, has yet to apply its collective brainpower to truly dig into its marketplace. Put simply, digging deeper means doing the targeted organizational and analytical work it takes to compete more effectively. But today, despite the availability (and increasing affordability) of powerful software applications, few firms conduct formal data mining to discover the unmet needs of clients and prospects. Digging deeper means capturing, organizing, and mining valuable client data to the point that one can discern past and potential client and marketplace patterns. Research shows that most professional service firms take the easy way out on efforts to differentiate themselves, avoiding the more successful but harder initiatives. Digging deeper means going beyond image-based positioning and branding campaigns to become truly different from competitors (Suzanne, 2004:11). Embedding innovation It involves deliberately incorporating support of innovation into a firm's practices and policies. As a whole, the professional service sector relies too heavily on technology-based "knowledge management" and promotion-based "thought leadership" as platforms on which to develop new services (Suzanne, 2004:12). For every service in order to cater prospect clients and in order to retain existing ones, is always been a priority in their day-to-day business processes. Because they know it's the clients who are responsible for their cash flows and their existence. All the leading service firms market themselves by using advertisement and for that they use different media so that their message could reach to their target market. Usually an advertisement made by a service firm before it's going to be online through any media, has two objectives: To create a brand image in the clients' mind. To publicize features of services they are offering, for the prospect clients and also to provide a recall for their existing ones. Nowadays the basic purpose of advertisement is not to have a one-way communication with the clients. These firms mould their advertisements in a way to provide an easy way for the clients to respond back with the feedback. This kind of two-way communication helps a service firm to retain its customer and cater new ones by giving answer to their queries, which might not be described with in the advertisement. Whether the advertisements is a radio or a TV commercial or its been given in any print media (Newspapers, magazines, brochures, bill boards, neon signs) is always limited in terms of space and time frame to display each and every details of a service offerings. Now in order to have two-way communication these service firms adopt two methodologies: To give a free of charge UAN number of a call centre, where specialist are present 24-hours of the day to respond to any possible queries of the clients. To publish a web site. Nowadays website as a medium of two way communication is evenly becoming more important than the call centres. The reason is by using website, the service provider can easily describe each and every feature of their service offerings in details by the use of multimedia technology (text, images, audio and video). Through websites, the clients can be given an opportunity to communicate with the service provider by online chatting (text, audio and video), by submitting feedback and even by emails. Different service providers in terms of different nature of services they are offering, along with other medium of advertisements, publish websites for the ease of their customers. Law Firms "The law firms that are donating time or money to advocates, they expect that they will gain from their donation. On the other hand, advocates of legal firms will target the population segments by developing relationships with the other legal aid organizations. By developing a relationship with these organizations, these organizations can refer people to advocates when they are unable to serve. Advocates will also target these people by developing awareness of their organization with different courts in the city so that the court is aware of advocates and can refer the people to them" (Law, 2006). On the other hand, these law firms uses different medium of advertisements specially websites for their services. Health Care "It seems natural at first to dismiss health care marketing as the invasion of crass commercialism into some of the most sensitive areas of people's lives. Using health information to market goods and services certainly runs the risk of invading privacy. The inappropriate advertisement or sales call can communicate to people that their sensitive information has been handled indiscreetly" (HealthCare, 2006). Nowadays all health care firms are keen to cater clients by offering them range of services along with the privacy surety. Architect There are no magical ways for Architecture firm success. It takes time and hard work to become the market leader. For every market firms to a market them properly they need to identify the following aspects first. Mostly which services are required by the clients For which feature of architect firm service, the clients are signing the contract. Which are the features in the architect service industry that are overburdening the client's budget and the client is ignorant at the first place. So the firm has to eradicate such features or educate the clients about that in order to have long lasting relationships. Real Estate "For every Real Estate firms in order to market themselves is a lot like selling themselves to a potential employer in a job interview. At some level, their prospective real estate clients have a lot of the same concerns: "Can I depend on this person Are they qualified Are they easy to work with Motivated Likeable Will they follow through and produce results" After all, the final decision of a client (or prospective employer) often comes down to one thing: comfort level. It's the real estate firm's job to put their clients at ease, projects a trustworthy image, and makes them feel good about the firm" (RealEstate, 2006). Insurance The goal of every insurance company is to provide an efficient and quick backup, if any of the risks occurs. It's becoming a fact that clients opt for an insurance of any type (Life, Medical or General) as they see an insurance company as their loss remedy to some extent. Now it's the job of every insurance company to win the clients trust and confidence by keeping up all the promises which they are making, giving quick response to every issue which the client is facing and suggest them different policies which they have not yet thought of. Health Club "Face it, working out is boring. Watching your "calorie burned" counter move at a maddeningly slow pace or lip reading television with no sound only serves to remind you that not only are you exhausted, but this is time during which, while your body is firming up, your brain is atrophying. Thanks to modern technology, advertisers and marketers can now reach these pliable minds just as they're seeking a diversion from the monotony. Slowly, but surely, a new generation of workout equipment is appearing in health clubs across the country, one that will let gym-goers click through their workouts as they watch TV, listen to music, or access the Internet. It's a new type of network, one which reaches a captive audience that may be difficult to reach through traditional media." (HealthClub, 2006) Tourism "Since tourism is primarily a service based industry, the principal products provided by recreation/tourism (R/T) businesses are recreational experiences and hospitality. As an industry, tourism has many components comprising the overall "travel experience." Along with transportation, it includes such things as accommodations, food and beverage services, shops, entertainment, aesthetics and special events. It is rare for one business to provide the variety of activities or facilities tourists need or desire. This adds to the difficulty of maintaining and controlling the quality of the experience. To overcome this hurdle, tourism related businesses, agencies, and organizations need to work together to package and promote tourism opportunities in their areas and align their efforts to assure consistency in service quality." (Tourism ,2006) Beauty Services "Every beauty salon is competing to become a full-service beauty salon dedicated to consistently providing high customer satisfaction by rendering excellent service, quality products, and furnishing an enjoyable atmosphere at an acceptable price/value relationship. The salon tries to maintain a friendly, fair, and creative work environment, which respects diversity, ideas, and hard work. The basic mission of a leading salon is to supply services and products that enhance their clients' physical appearance and mental relaxation." (Beauty, 2006). Financial firms "The Internet continues to dramatically change the relationship between retail financial services firms and their customers. For many consumers, the Web has become the preferred channel for financial account management and transactions, including online bill-pay, banking services and stock trading. By capitalizing on these trends, leading financial institutions are demonstrating that an effective Internet strategy results in: Higher account balances Increased product usage Improved customer satisfaction and retention Lower costs to serve" (Finance, 2006). Restaurants Every leading restaurant tries to provide the customer the finest variety and quality meal and dining experience. Their main aim is to attract and maintain customers. And when this is the objective then, everything else will fall into place.Every restaurant has to anticipate that target populations is broadly segmented into three categories: Individuals Family Take out. The success of every restaurant is to ensure that customer service should be the priority. All the trained employees should ensure that the customers are having the most pleasant dining experience (Restaurants, 2006). Consultancy Firms A leading consultancy firm must have the expertise to analyse varying nature of businesses. It must have the intellectual capabilities, extensive knowledge of current market trends and access to all kinds of secondary data sources (published research materials of different industries). Team of different fields of intellectual capabilities knows the complete business process of their field of expertise and thus it favours the overall company's growth. The main assets of a consultancy firm is basically the intellectuals who know the nature of customers, they are dealing with. References and Bibliography Beauty (2006) accessed from Finance (2006) accessed from HealthCare (2006) accessed from HealthClub (2006) accessed from Law (2006) accessed from RealEstate (2006) accessed from Restaurants (2006) accessed from Suzzane C. Lowe, Praeger (2004), Marketplace Masters: How professional service firms compete to win. Tourism (2006) accessed from Read More