I’ve been working in the area of “Professional Services” for about 15 years. Its a funny thing … I’ve never bothered to look up the definition of what a professional service is or what fields it includes. Now, of course, the  disciplines of Accounting & Law would be regarded as professional services but what are the other areas grouped into the market category “Professional Services?”

Firstly, we need a definition. What exactly are professional services? Here are three (3) definitions of professional services that I picked up from the web:

Professional services are accounting, legal, medical and other such services provided by a formally certified member of a professional body. (http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/professional-services.html)

Professional services are infrequent, technical, or unique functions performed by independent contractors or by consultants whose occupation is the rendering of such services. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Professional_services)

Professional services comprise of industries whose products and services are based on professional expertise rather than on discrete products or commodities. (http://www.bitpipe.com/tlist/Professional-Services-Industries.html)

To be truthful I’m a little disappointed with the above definitions. They don’t nearly go far enough to capture the essence of what a professional service is and should be. Tune into the next post for a better definition.

Now in terms of the disciplines that professional services covers we get a better outcome. According to the ubiquitous Wikipedia, the professional services market sector includes the following areas of expertise:

• Accountants
• Actuaries
• Appraisers/valuers
• Architects
• Brokers
• Business consultants
• Copywriters
• Dentists
• Distributors
• Engineers
• Funeral directors
• Lawyers
• Physicians
• Public relations consultants
• Recruiters
• Researchers
• Real estate agents
• Translators
• Software engineers
• Value-added resellers
• Web designers

Quite a list to say the least!

As mentioned earlier, next post I’ll try (hopefully) to come up with a better definition of what a professional service.

Keep smiling and bye for now.

James E

James Evangelidis

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