"Full Service" is Not a Strategy

Source: VeraSage Institute Blog

In this blog entry, Ron Baker presents an excerpt from Tim Williams's new book, Positioning for Professionals: How Professional Knowledge Firms Can Differentiate Their Way to Success.

In the excerpt, Williams dispels the notion that “full service” is the “ultimate growth strategy” and that “narrow” means “small.” Using the advertising industry as an example, Williams observes that the top 25 advertising firms are specialist rather than full-service agencies. Firms with a narrow focus have enormous potential because clients are looking for “specific solutions to specific problems in specific categories” rather than for a “full-service agency with a wide range of experience in diverse categories.”

Williams suggests that there's no such thing as full service: “Saying that you do everything is not a strategy, but rather the absence of a strategy.” He makes an analogy between professional service firms and packaged goods makers. The latter eventually recognized that a “total solution” brand was less effective than a “single-benefit” brand. Similarly, for professional service firms, promising to do a specific job extremely well is a more powerful strategy than trying to do many jobs moderately well.

For the complete blog entry, read “Why There's No Such Thing as Full Service.”

From VeraSage Institute, http://www.verasage.com/index.php/community, December 1, 2010.