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Productize: The Ultimate Guide to Turning Professional Services into Scalable Products Paperback – May 2, 2021

by Eisha Armstrong (Author)

4.4 out of 5 stars

93 ratings

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A growing number of traditional professional service firms are using "productization" as a strategy to increase their growth, boost valuations, and fight away new competitors that are digital-first. However, a lot of them are doomed to fail and waste lots of money during the process. Productize starts by outlining what are the "Seven Deadly Productization Mistakes" committed when developing an approach to product development, and it then offers a plan to overcome each one of these blunders. The book is intended to be a useful guide for anyone who is the leader of a professional service business who wishes to effectively grow their business.

For companies that offer high-end, customized services, product creation and commercialization is often not their main competencies methods, mindsets, and processes. The process of creating services usually requires companies to reconsider the way they operate and how they generate value for their customers. This transformation is not effortlessly.

Productize contains real-world cases studies and stories that feature professionals who have managed their organizations to design more sustainable products and services. The book also contains over two dozen templates and tools to help you implement strategies so that you don't have to begin at the beginning.

This book will help you be taught:

* How do you shift your mindset to adopt an attitude of product

* The skills you need are able to achieve and whether you should invest in these or expand these capabilities internally

* How much do you want to invest in exploring and developing products and solutions that are more scalable

How do you ensure that there's a potential market

* How do you arrange investments for the development of new products

* How to source and collaborate with data scientists, developers and other developers.

* How can you inexpensively test your ideas prior to investing in research and development

* How do you get the attention and hearts of your sales staff to make sure your new products are successful commercially

"Bonus": key points summaries at the conclusion of each chapter to help you stay the information you've learned

* Actual Life Case Studies with professional service leaders who have led their companies to develop more product and services that can be scaled.

Productize is based on the nearly 25 years of experience Eisha Armstrong has in developing, launching and expanding the number of products that are offered. Eisha is aware of the things that work as well as what doesn't. She is adamant about helping that organizations can learn from one another and don't have to reinvent the wheel.

John Roberts

5.0 out of 5 stars

The next evolution in service business models

Reviewed in the United States on May 5, 2021

Verified Purchase

In Productize, Eisha Armstrong, and the team at Vecteris, uncover the critical steps for successfully transforming pure business services into scalable and sustainable growth through products. Their book identifies first the mistakes we make and then suggests solutions for overcoming those barriers. In a quite practical step by step manner, Armstrong illustrates the productize pathway and then showcases how best to resolve the people challenges, ring fence for innovation, and focus on solving the right, most valuable business problems. Armstrong's emphasis on co-operation with customers places her approach solidly within current trends toward customer experience and her argument to not fear cannibalization is a shot across the bow of every established professional services firm whose traditional lines of business impede innovation. This a book for any leader who wants to get off the hamster wheel of solutions business models and move toward truly scalable and sustainable business outcomes.

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Shawn Deggans

5.0 out of 5 stars

Excellent guide to turning service-based organizations into product developers

Reviewed in the United States on May 30, 2021

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As a consultant I’m regularly trading hours for dollars. I build bespoke technically complex solutions often to fit very specific organizational needs. However, there are common patterns, processes, and technical tasks that could easily be productized and sold as an overall solution. This book includes the framework and recommendations for taking the approach.

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Stephen Baggott

5.0 out of 5 stars

Excellent guide for transforming business services into scalable products to fuel profitable growth

Reviewed in the United States on May 9, 2021

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If you lead a professional services business you seek to grow and scale, then Eisha Armstrong’s Productize is a must read. In her compact, wisdom-filled book, Eisha provides a clear road map for successfully productizing services to open-up profitable new revenue opportunities.

Importantly, she takes a human-centered approach to the overall innovation process from addressing the mindsets of business leaders embarking on transformation to emphasizing the importance of deep customer understanding of urgent, expensive problems as well as partnering with customers for co-creation.

Based on decades of product innovation expertise, Eisha provides a wonderful combination of visual process frameworks to guide your journey, “deadly mistakes” to watch out for, and engaging real-life stories.

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Connie

5.0 out of 5 stars

Actionable insight to productization

Reviewed in the United States on February 27, 2022

Verified Purchase

Looking for actionable information in your product evolution? Look no further! The book, clear guidance and steps, as well as a toolkit you can use to think outside the box and develop a productization strategy.

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A. Luecke

5.0 out of 5 stars

Think Big, Start Small... and be Fearless!

Reviewed in the United States on May 11, 2021

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Words to live by! Productize is the "how to" manual for turning big ideas into successful realities. Sounds simple, but anyone who has tried knows the challenges. Eisha offers relatable examples and effective solutions for tackling common mistakes that happen as you develop and implement your productization strategy. Useful and inspiring read!

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david w. burleigh

5.0 out of 5 stars

Follow the Urgent and Expensive Problems

Reviewed in the United States on May 11, 2021

If you own or work for a professional services firm, you should read this book. If you don't think you own or work for such a firm but you actually do - for example, you're in financial services or personal lines insurance - you should read this book. It's an excellent instruction manual in how to identify aspects of your business that can be turned into products that enhance the value of services. The book keeps the focus on innovation. Commoditization and erosion of value are the risks. Innovation via technology-enabled products is the solution.

The author is good at posing fundamental business issues clearly. Among her best points is the distinction about urgent and expensive problems. A customer may voice the same problem over and over. However, the common problem is not necessarily the customer's urgent and expensive problem.

The book is laid out well. First come the mistakes you, as the professional services firm worker, are apt to make. Then come the solutions. The two lists correlate, so the book is easy to follow. The solutions chapters contain any number of good observations. There are also good tools to implement the points, available from the book's Web site.

One of this book's best aspects is that it doesn't waste time. This isn't a meandering, shallow story on the order of "Who Moved My Cheese?" It's packed with important points, and it moves briskly.

Buy it, read it, and improve the value of your business.

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C. Gordon

5.0 out of 5 stars

Practical Approach for B2B Companies Looking to Transition from Services to Products

Reviewed in the United States on May 10, 2021

It is rare that I review a business book that has so much applicability to the conversations I have been having professionally for the last two decades!

Eisha Tierney Armstrong begins with a methodical discussion of how companies in the professional services space tackle the challenge of transitioning from professional services to scalable products and the mistakes that prevent them from succeeding. Next, she offers a logical, practical, and not overly complicated framework for avoiding those mistakes with The Productize Pathway.

I thought the breakdown of the components of the Pathway -- together with a series of tools and templates that support each activity -- were easy to follow and made sense. Moreover, the straightforward description enables one to select those ideas or tactics that will be most useful, depending on your individual circumstances. Finally, the Action Steps provide discussion questions that can help a team select one (or several) focus areas for conversation and debate.

Productize is well written and actionable. I look forward to sharing this book with my team!

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J. Spanbauer

5.0 out of 5 stars

Strategy for growth in your service business

Reviewed in the United States on May 13, 2021

It is rare to find someone like Eisha who has such extensive experience productizing professional services and teaching other business leaders how to do it themselves. This is not your typical business book where you skim it and wonder why you bought it. Productize is a book you can use with your leadership team to study, discuss and use its tools to bring your growth ideas to life

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Becky Abraham

5.0 out of 5 stars

A must-read for anyone moving to customized services to scalable products

Reviewed in the United States on May 8, 2021

As someone who is leading a product organization to develop more digital-first assets, this book is an invaluable tool not only to help manage the Product team but to help align leadership and build a strong vision and plan. Eisha lays out a very well-thought out process to help organizations make the shift, what to avoid, and the actions each organization should take to start the journey. As I was reading, I found immediate use for meetings I have in the next few weeks and will be taking Eisha's recommendations into those meetings.

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Michelle Campbell

5.0 out of 5 stars

Productize will help your business succeed

Reviewed in the United States on May 13, 2021

This is a practical playbook MUST READ for any leader of a professional services business who wants to successfully accelerate growth. Productize outlines the capabilities B2B's need to be successful through every phase of your product or service. Through a clear strategy, actionable steps and real-life case studies, you will able to assess where you are in your product pathway and avoid unnecessary pitfalls. I've worked with Eisha over the past 5 years, and she has saved me considerable time and money by ensuring I did not launch products without a viable marketplace.

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