RainToday.com Note: This is Part One of a three-part series. Here, Marcus explains why productivity is particularly difficult to assess for professional services. Part Two takes a look at measuring the elements that affect productivity for the services industries. In Part Three, Marcus helps us understand how we can improve our productivity.

There is a valuable aspect of professional services marketing that seems to defy assessment.

It's productivity. Productivity is an economic measure of the increased value derived from the more efficient use of labor, capital and raw materials. In manufacturing, or non-professional services industries, improved productivity could substantially improve the return on manufacturing investment.

But productivity is more than an economic abstraction, although it's an economic concept that can be profoundly nuanced.

According to an article by William W. Lewis in the McKinsey Quarterly, studies found that the primary force in increasing productivity is competition, which is, after all, the primary force in managing today's professional firm. “Competition,” says Lewis, “is that mechanism that helps more productive and efficient companies expand and take market share from less productive ones.”

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