ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the complementary areas of knowledge needed to prepare a services firm for business. The firm faces a fundamental decision on how to attack the marketplace whether to manage the business on the basis of supply management, or demand management. For the firm to operate at its optimum economic potential, it is essential to understand the staffing ratios that drive a properly balanced services business. Depending upon the details of the business model, people at this level may retain a personal billing target, but their value is in their skill at finding and maintaining clients while leveraging the firm's lower levels. The services business is rarely built on a sales approach that only consists of specifying, pricing, and delivering a product. A firm that operates in a variety of business environments or with different suites of complex products, may choose to optimize the practitioner organization by establishing professional services management (PSM) units in each of these specializations.
