When I’m in an academic setting looking into research into services, there’s one idea that I’m continually looking out for: finding a measure that is superior to counting billable hours.
Billable utilization is one of the measures common in knowledge intensive business services (KIBS). This category of services includes professionals such as consultants, lawyers and accountants.
I’ve been triggered on this topic by reading “Exile on Bay Street” by Alec Scott, in the September issue of Toronto Life. This well-written personal account of the life of lawyers on Bay Street — the financial centre of Canada — parallels that of management consultants. Firstly, there’s the external perception of what the life is like (or at least what it was):
The lawyers of the last generation lived the cliché; they worked and played equally hard. Unlike my peers, they loved telling war stories, vividly recounting the ups and downs of the practice. [….]