Dace

Execution is more than just getting things done; it is about discipline, corporate culture, and making execution a major part of leaders job. In order to execute you must master the three prosesses - people, strategy, and operations - and understand how they are connected.

Built to Last (by Jim Collins and Jerry I. Porras) was one of the books that truly changed the way I think about doing business. The authors discuss thoroughly why some companies differ so much from others that seem to do same kind of business. They found that there are several facts and common practices that shape companies to outshine their competitors.

In Managing the Professional Services Firm, David H. Maister goes through in great detail all the basic (and not so basic) aspects of running a professional service firm. In general you can divide the challenges in three: how to get the work, how to get the doers for the work, and how to keep these two together for in the long run.

If you simplify, getting the consulting business profitable is based on two things: hourly fees and efficiency. You can raise the fees easily but the unless you can offer value for money you won't have any clients. To justify high fees, you nees to have highly experienced, educated and smart people working for you. Raising your efficiency rates, of course, requires you to have a little bit more work than you can handle.