The Four Pillars of Innovation: Lessons for Building a Winning Global Consulting Firm
A Global Marketplace Demands a New Look at Innovation
By Azita Gandjei and Sameer Nadkarni
Executive Summary
As the global market for professional services evolves, it is creating profound new challenges for Indian professional services organizations (PSOs). Indian PSOs are struggling to maintain their profit margins, growth rates, and workforce for three key reasons:
- The distinction between offshore and onshore firms is disappearing. Soon, all PSOs will need offshore and onshore capabilities and all will need to meet the same global standard.
- A shortage of skilled workers is driving wage inflation, as well as the need to offer experience that builds people’s expertise in high value projects.
- Contracting has changed, with customers splitting large projects among many vendors. This has dramatically heightened competition and restricted growth rates.
Indian vendors recognize that innovation is the key to success, but innovation cannot be restricted to creating new service offerings. To thrive, PSOs must innovate in the four following ways:
1. Devise new, more relevant, high-value service offerings.
2. Create and refine business practices that will improve customer loyalty.
3. Find creative ways to neutralize competitors’ advantages.
4. Drive improvements in operational productivity.
All forms of innovation, however, will require in-depth insight into PSOs’ operations. To gain that insight, PSOs need internal processes and a new generation of tools that will help these firms better:
- Manage resources
- Assess profitability
- Manage the pipeline
- Collaborate
- Share knowledge
This paper draws on in-depth interviews that Primavera and the Bindi Group conducted with senior executives at 14 leading Indian service providers and 14 of the world’s leading users of professional services. The interviews explored the new competitive factors facing service providers, as well as what they need to respond effectively. It is part of a series of conversations that we hope will lend genuine value to the challenges PSOs face.
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