Getting More Juice From The Orange: Improving Productivity In Professional Services Marketing (Part Two)

By Bruce W. Marcus

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

The Measure Of Productivity

The basic definition of productivity, as economists define it, is relatively simple. It's an increase in production without a comparable increase in capital, material, or labor.

If you build 6 widgets in one hour for five dollars, and then find a way to build 10 widgets in one hour for the same five dollars, you've increased productivity.

If you're in the orange juice business, and you pay a worker a dollar to produce one gallon of juice in five minutes, then when you pay that same worker the same dollar to produce two gallons of juice in the same five minutes, you've doubled productivity, and thereby doubled potential profitability. It's safe to presume that increased productivity improves profitability.

In manufacturing, costs are measurable. Labor, material, machinery, and overhead all have fixed costs. The results of the manufacturing process are tangible, and readily seen. The exigencies of the economy may alter these costs, but essentially, the costs continue to function in relationship to one another.

But in professional services marketing, the principle ingredient is intellectual capital. While intellectual capital is, of course, inherent in all human endeavors, it's the primary ingredient and resource of the professions, including marketing, and perhaps it's a marker that more than anything defines a profession.

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