Productize: The Ultimate Guide to Turning Professional Services into Scalable Products

More and more traditional professional services firms are turning to "productization" as a strategy to grow, improve valuations, and to fend off new digital-first competitors. However, many of them will fail and waste a lot of money in the process. Productize first outlines the "Seven Deadly Productization Mistakes" made when pursuing a product strategy, then provides the blueprint for overcoming each of these missteps. It is designed to be a practical playbook for any leader of a professional services business who wants to successfully accelerate growth. For companies that deliver highly customized services, new product development and commercialization are often outside of their core skills, processes, and mindsets. Productizing services typically requires organizations to think differently about how they work and how they create value for their customers. This change does not come easily. Productize includes real-life case studies and stories featuring professional services leaders who have successfully led their organizations to create more scalable services and products. It also includes more than two dozen tools and templates to help your team implement the tactics so you don't have to start from scratch. In this book, you'll learn: • How to shift your culture to embrace a product-mindset • The capabilities that you to be successful and whether or not you should acquire them or grow them internally • How much money to invest in exploring and building more scalable solutions and products • How to ensure there is a viable market for your product idea • How to sequence investments in new product development • How to successfully source and work with developers and data scientists • How to inexpensively test your ideas before investing in development • How to win the hearts and minds of your sales team to ensure your new products are commercially successful • Bonus: Key point summaries at the end of each chapter to help you lock in what you learn • Real Life Case Studies: featuring professional services leaders who have successfully led their organizations to create more scalable services and products Productize draws on the 25+ years of experience that Eisha Armstrong has in successfully creating, launching and growing productized services. Eisha knows what works and what doesn't and she is passionate about making sure organizations learn from each other and avoid reinventing the wheel.

More and more traditional professional services firms are turning to "productization" as a strategy to grow, improve valuations, and to fend off new digital-first competitors. However, many of them will fail and waste a lot of money in the process. Productize first outlines the "Seven Deadly Productization Mistakes" made when pursuing a product strategy, then provides the blueprint for overcoming each of these missteps. It is designed to be a practical playbook for any leader of a professional services business who wants to successfully accelerate growth. For companies that deliver highly customized services, new product development and commercialization are often outside of their core skills, processes, and mindsets. Productizing services typically requires organizations to think differently about how they work and how they create value for their customers. This change does not come easily. Productize includes real-life case studies and stories featuring professional services leaders who have successfully led their organizations to create more scalable services and products. It also includes more than two dozen tools and templates to help your team implement the tactics so you don't have to start from scratch. In this book, you'll learn: • How to shift your culture to embrace a product-mindset • The capabilities that you to be successful and whether or not you should acquire them or grow them internally • How much money to invest in exploring and building more scalable solutions and products • How to ensure there is a viable market for your product idea • How to sequence investments in new product development • How to successfully source and work with developers and data scientists • How to inexpensively test your ideas before investing in development • How to win the hearts and minds of your sales team to ensure your new products are commercially successful • Bonus: Key point summaries at the end of each chapter to help you lock in what you learn • Real Life Case Studies: featuring professional services leaders who have successfully led their organizations to create more scalable services and products Productize draws on the 25+ years of experience that Eisha Armstrong has in successfully creating, launching and growing productized services. Eisha knows what works and what doesn't and she is passionate about making sure organizations learn from each other and avoid reinventing the wheel.