Problems › Should We Enter a New Market? › Professional Services
Market size and growth tell you little. The question is whether the new work can be delivered at the same utilisation and realisation without diluting partner leverage. What makes this harder for professional services firms is structural: partner compensation rationally pays people <em>not</em> to sell the highest-margin product in the firm. Any credible answer therefore has to hold billable utilisation and realisation in the same view, which is exactly where most internal analysis stops because the two live in different systems.
Market size and growth tell you little. The question is whether the new work can be delivered at the same utilisation and realisation without diluting partner leverage. What makes this harder for professional services firms is structural: partner compensation rationally pays people not to sell the highest-margin product in the firm. Any credible answer therefore has to hold billable utilisation and realisation in the same view, which is exactly where most internal analysis stops because the two live in different systems.
New services get evaluated on potential billings, both of which are knowable and neither of which predicts success. The predictive question is what existing client relationships or partner expertise transfers and what requires new people on the bench.
A high-growth service area can still be a bad idea if it lowers average realisation or forces partners to spend time on lower-margin work. A slower area where you already have high engagement margins will usually deliver more revenue per partner.
The other discipline is a stated kill criterion before entry, because new service lines are unusually good at consuming partner time and bench capacity for years on the argument that utilisation will rise.
These three together are the signature. One on its own usually points somewhere else.
✓ Discussions focus on the size of the new market rather than its effect on existing utilisation rates.
✓ No one has defined the realisation threshold or leverage ratio that would trigger exit.
✓ The managing partner is pushing the new market because overall revenue per partner has stopped growing.
The move that usually makes it worse. Entering because the existing book of business shows flat revenue per partner, which pulls the managing partner away from fixing utilisation and realisation in the core practice.
It is for you if you run or finance a professional services firm and the case rests mainly on market size and growth rate. It is the situation where the numbers are available but nobody has put them in an order that produces a decision.
It is not for you if Percision is the wrong tool if you already know the answer and only need execution capacity, or if the business is pre-revenue — then the constraint is evidence about the market, not analysis of your own figures. Percision is not a lawyer, tax advisor, auditor, licensed appraiser, clinical or regulatory filer, or an AI implementation shop. It does not do HR casework, creative-only brand work, or impersonate a named consulting firm. It is a strategy analysis engine — not a template library. Also wrong if you need facilitation, politics, or someone to sit with a lender or buyer. Those are human jobs.
Percision is not a lawyer, tax advisor, auditor, licensed appraiser, clinical or regulatory filer, or an AI implementation shop. It does not do HR casework, creative-only brand work, or impersonate a named consulting firm. It is a strategy analysis engine — not a template library.
Below is an excerpt from a real run of this analysis on a professional services firm. It is a sample profile rather than a customer, and it is unedited engine output — this is the format you get, on your own numbers.
The subject is Aldergate Partners, a sample company profile used for testing rather than a customer — $88M revenue, 310 people.
Excerpt from a real Percision run · Cost Reduction & Efficiency · sample company profile
The move. Re-align partner economics so the diagnostic that already converts 63% of the time becomes the default first sale.
| Investment required | $0.9–1.1M total over 12 months: $0.4M for partner-success function (3 FTE), $0.3M for vertical-IP playbook development (4 FTE from existing bench), $0.2M for compensation-model simulation. |
| Expected return | Incremental EBITDA of $2.4–3.2M annually once 40 diagnostics/year achieved; payback period 4–6 months after compensation redesign goes live. |
| Revenue, year 1 | $60.5–62.0M (base case assumes 28 diagnostics sold, 65% attach rate) |
| Revenue, year 2 | $66–69M (40 diagnostics, 70% attach rate, vertical-IP packages live) |
| Revenue, year 3 | $74–78M (52 diagnostics, 75% attach rate, UK/EU regulatory playbooks optional) |
| Exit criteria | Strategy should be reversed if, within 12 months, (a) diagnostic attach rate falls below 45% for two consecutive quarters, OR (b) ≥4 partners depart (18% attrition), OR (c) partner cash-impact delta is negative for ≥50% of partners for two consecutive quarters. |
This is one move out of a full analysis. Read a complete report — every page, no email required.
This question routes to Market Entry & Expansion Strategy, one of 29 engagements the platform runs. For professional services firms it works through billable utilisation, realisation, revenue per partner and engagement gross margin, then produces the sequence rather than a list of options — which move first, what it funds, and the observation that would say the sequence is wrong.
You watch the analysis get built before paying anything. Read a complete report here if you would rather see the depth first.
List what you already own that the new market values, and what a credible incumbent there owns that you do not. If the second list is longer and includes anything structural — distribution, regulation, data depth — entry is a build, not an extension.
Set the number before you start, and treat exceeding it as the kill criterion rather than as a reason to invest more. Most failed entries were never killed, only slowly starved.
Whichever reuses more of what you already have. Geography usually reuses the product and rebuilds distribution; a new segment usually reuses distribution and rebuilds the product. Whichever rebuild is smaller is the safer bet.
Materially, yes. Partner compensation rationally pays people not to sell the highest-margin product in the firm — which changes both the diagnosis and the order of the fixes. The metrics that decide it here are billable utilisation, realisation, revenue per partner, and an answer built on industry-general benchmarks will usually point at the wrong one first.
Less than most people expect. Your last twelve months of revenue and cost split the way you already split it, plus whatever you hold on billable utilisation and realisation. The analysis is explicit about what it is assuming where your data stops, which is more useful than waiting for numbers you may never have.
Percision is the wrong tool if you already know the answer and only need execution capacity, or if the business is pre-revenue — then the constraint is evidence about the market, not analysis of your own figures. Percision is not a lawyer, tax advisor, auditor, licensed appraiser, clinical or regulatory filer, or an AI implementation shop. It does not do HR casework, creative-only brand work, or impersonate a named consulting firm. It is a strategy analysis engine — not a template library. Also wrong if you need facilitation, politics, or someone to sit with a lender or buyer. Those are human jobs.
Percision is not a lawyer, tax advisor, auditor, licensed appraiser, clinical or regulatory filer, or an AI implementation shop. It does not do HR casework, creative-only brand work, or impersonate a named consulting firm. It is a strategy analysis engine — not a template library.
Describe the situation in your own words and we will tell you which analysis answers it — before you sign up for anything.
Describe my situation →Prefer to skip ahead? Go straight to the free diagnostic.
English · Español · Deutsch · Português · Français · Italiano · Nederlands · 日本語 · 한국어 · 中文 · Polski · Svenska · Türkçe · العربية · Tiếng Việt · ไทย · हिन्दी · עברית