Our 3 favorite podcast episodes of 2022

We’ve recorded a lot of great podcasts for professional services over the last several months. To give you a reminder if you’ve missed any, let’s take a look at three of our favorites, covering topics from commercial strategy to people strategy and how you can grow your business while still streamlining operations and boosting efficiency.

Mickey North Rizza – attrition in the professional services industry

In professional services, high rates of attrition have always been an issue, but they’re even more acute now as competition increases for talent and a limited pool of skilled applicants demands ever more in terms of professional autonomy and work-life balance. According to McKinsey, 40% of employees now say they’re at least somewhat likely to quit within the next 6 months.

For professional services firms, this level of turnover represents a real threat: after all, when most of the value in the business walks out of the door at the end of the day, it’s a real problem if it doesn’t ever come back in.

In this episode, Mark Gibbison speaks to IDC Group VP of Enterprise Software Mickey North Rizza about the effects of attrition in professional services as resignation rates remain high.

They cover dealing with the impact of an older generation of workers leaving, the challenges inherent in preparing younger generations for leadership roles (including changing attitudes and approaches to work, the necessity of succession planning, and the post-pandemic importance of wellbeing), and the steps businesses can take to ensure that their talent stays with them for the long haul.

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Shawn Windle – mergers and acquisitions in professional services

Unit4’s Senior Manager, Industry Solutions Bryce Wolf speaks to Shawn Windle, the founder of ERP Advisors Group, about his first hand experience of helping clients navigate mergers and acquisitions in professional services.

With the service industries experiencing something of an M&A frenzy, Shawn shares his expertise in helping companies who are purchasing other companies to create economies of scale, access new markets and customer bases, and innovate in an increasingly competitive landscape.

The discussion includes a close look at the opportunities available to companies in their M&A efforts – including the process of accessing venture capital and the challenges inherent of merging multiple organizations while navigating the complex situations often created by legacy technology and operating environment.

Subjects covered include the importance of process automation and standardization and why these are key to successful M&A in service-based businesses, how a connected approach to back-office functions helps you deliver better services as your business grows, how modern ERP systems can help firms to overcome common M&A challenges, and how small improvements to processes and working environments can make a huge difference both to experience, employee productivity and satisfaction, and overall operational efficiency and competitiveness.

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Click to read How to win the service game with ERP Gated

Craig Schiff – the productization of professional services

“Productization” will be a new concept for many in the service industries, but it’s been around for a long time. As you might have guessed, it refers to taking a specific set of services offered piecemeal and consolidating them into a set offering that can be sold again and again to different customers or clients. Effectively, it’s a strategic business process that helps service firms sell their services in a way that’s easier for them to price, and easier for their buyers to understand.

In this episode, Craig Schiff of BPM partners shares his experience and expertise in helping service firms to productize their offerings. Including why professional services are now beginning to productize their offerings, why it’s increasingly becoming an economic necessity to do so, and how companies can use productization to achieve the holy grail of competitive advantage.

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Ready to learn more?

If you’d like to learn more about any of the discussions referenced in this article, please click here to arrange a meeting with one of our Business Development team.