So much has evolved because of the expanding grip of social media and digital marketing. From how we interact to how we engage with content, everything is just a tap away. It’s caused many companies and professional services firms to adapt and transform in order to better reach new clients. 

Unfortunately though, many managing partners and CEOs aren’t able to stay on top of the trends because of all the work they handle. Constantly juggling competing responsibilities at an internal level leaves limited time to focus on the big picture. 

If you’re unsure of what to prioritise this year, we’ve curated five areas that we believe take precedence in the digital age. Through these five areas, you’ll definitely see your business in a new light and open up opportunities to grow in 2021. 

Priority areas of focus for professional services in 2021

These points will touch on the five areas a managing partner or CEO should focus on in order to evolve. Each is crucial to growth and, when done all together, will bring you closer to an appropriate response to the changing times. 

1. Driving people growth, capability, and culture

Younger employees and company hopefuls are very different from your contemporaries. Millennials (and soon, Gen Z) make up a huge chunk of the workforce now and they’re more outspoken and driven by the need for a meaningful career. 

Because of this, creating a welcoming environment with a great team culture is crucial. Being able to trust this younger generation and leaving them to make their own leadership decisions (while still ensuring they’re prepared for the results of these decisions) empowers them, keeps them happy and increases retention rates as motivated and committed staff are more likely to stay. 

Invest in your employees. Make sure they feel they’re in an environment where they can grow, not one of pressure and constriction. Encourage them to be honest with how they feel about their work environment and make the changes you, as the managing partner or CEO, see fit. Building this kind of team culture ensures contentment and boosts productivity—after all, an inspired employee is a productive employee.

Once team culture is in place, you’ll be in a position to look to the long term and develop and implement strategies to identify important lateral hires and find acquisitions to bolster team skills, capacity and new business opportunities.

2. New product and service development

As business changes, so do the products and services that people find relevant and necessary. Use this time to reflect on what’s out there now and how you can either change your product or service, innovate or create new ones to satisfy demand. 

Create a strategy to sharpen your products or services to be more convenient, quicker, or even better-designed to overtake your competitors. Anything that makes your product or service more enticing will bring about a higher likelihood of sales as you’ll have an edge over your competitors. 

Just think of Apple. Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak set out to design something simple for those who weren’t used to computers and now, Apple has become synonymous with high-quality design that people trust. Apple doesn’t just stop the design process when manufacturing starts, they take the product, review it, and then build it all over again. They try to dissect how they can make their product more valuable in the eyes of their customers. 

3. Building and maintaining key strategic partnerships

More often than not, creating and maintaining a relationship with other businesses can be tricky but, if done right, it can be mutually beneficial. Business to business (or B2B) partnerships, when strategic, can enrich your company while opening doors to another customer base or market. Strategic referral partnerships work by referring your company’s customers to your partner company’s and vice versa. But how do you ensure you can create a good alliance?

To gain strategic alliances, you must be able to identify exactly what the other business is offering you and why. Politely pepper them with questions about their product or service, what they’re looking for in a partnership, if they’ve had them before, etc. Review and assess their answers and see if you align with their values. 

And while you’re getting to know them and what they can offer, don’t forget they’re waiting for the same thing from you. They want to know you, what your unique selling point is, and what you can give them. It’s reciprocal. 

Encourage your team to network, as well, and to create meaningful relationships. Trust is the bedrock of cooperation. And, like with all leadership roles, make sure you take the initiative to network so your team can look to you as an example. Create strategic referral partnerships with companies that can benefit yours and help generate more leads. 

4. Building brand, positioning and communication

A big part of business coaching is telling our clients that they need to know their brand inside and out—even the parts that are often more conceptual. Company values are one of these things, people tend to brush over them because it’s difficult to tangibly experience them or harness them while working. But they’re crucial as they’re the pillars on which your company will operate.

Identifying your company values is the first step. Translating them into actions is the next. Have everyone come together and really dissect what your values are and what kind of behaviours are embedded into them. Is one of your core values being responsive to feedback? Discuss what actions meet that value head on. And when all is said and done ensure that these values and the behaviours you’ve extracted from them are accessible to everybody so that they adhere to them. 

Clients and staff are looking far beyond the money transaction. They’re looking for deeper social responsibility and ethics behind your brand. 

You must make sure your brand aligns with your positioning of your products and services in the marketplace. This is the key thing that differentiates your business delivery to that of your competitors. To make sure this happens effectively, the right communication channels are required at all levels throughout your business. This extends both internally through team communication right through to external marketing and client communication. 

5. Technology advancements and opportunities to innovate

We’re hurtling further and further into this technological age with breakthroughs happening left and right. There’s no point running from how it’s affecting how everything operates—even business. Instead of shying away from it, we encourage you to embrace these new tech developments and strategically use them to your advantage.

Study other industries and see how they’re employing technology in their day-to-day operations. Have they transformed anything to automation? Have they used it to better understand the digital landscape? How can your company do the same—or even better?

Find new technological advancements that quicken processes and make things more efficient, especially for finances. Finance can be very tricky as it requires accuracy and precision. Technology can help achieve said precision and even interpret that very data so your company can infer if you or your clients are doing well financially at a glance. It’s quick, efficient, and it is less likely to be errant because of the automated processes that go into them. 

These five areas of focus may be intimidating to go through all by yourself but with the right business advisor, we know you’ll be able to move forward. Business advisory and coaching is all about helping you expand your vision and helping you make the best of your business. 

We’ve been business advisors for more than 20 years in the professional services industry and we’d love to help you with these five areas if you’d like to change focus in 2021. Reach out to us to learn how you can implement these five things this year.