London, UK, June 09 - The world’s first dedicated certification for professional services was launched by training company Learning Tree International in London on 19 May 2016.
New PS Professional™ Certification Launches to shape the Consultant of Tomorrow
9th June 2016
London, UK, June 09 - The world’s first dedicated certification for professional services was launched by training company Learning Tree International in London on 19 May 2016. PS Professional leverages technical ability with commercial and personal strengths, and is designed to deliver the consultant of the future. PS Professional has already received positive responses from many organizations including BT, AT & T and Dimension Data.
Consultants and other PS professionals have long relied on technical skills in order to address requirements of clients and typically gain a number of both vendor (CCIE, Microsoft Professional) and/or non-vendor (ITIL®, PRINCE2®) certifications. However, it takes more than technical skills to stand out in today’s increasingly complex professional services world and there has been little in the way of a clear development path for advancing crucial non-technical, personal and commercial skills and competencies for this community.
The new certification has been developed by professional services practitioners. It’s accredited by APMG International and monitored by an independent advisory board including representatives from AT&T, BT and Dimension Data.
“PS Professional takes practitioners beyond knowledge certifications to develop personal and commercial skills to enhance their effectiveness. There is a close association with the IT and Telco industries in the shape of consultants, pre-sales, solutions architects and project / programme managers to name but a few”, says Richard Pharro, CEO, APM Group. “If we also consider those working in the legal, accounting and financial services industries then there is a very sizeable group of professionals around the world seeking to widen their skillset.”
A recent report entitled, “The Future of Jobs”, published by the World Economic Forum (WEF) highlights the so-called ‘fourth industrial revolution’ and the enormous change predicted in skill sets. Two new and emerging job types are expected to become critically important by the year 2020, according to the WEF; one type is a specialised sales representative. This is a cornerstone to PS Professional, the realization that whilst many consultants have depth in their technical skills, they lack a certain width that can be a critical and deciding factor when demonstrating their capabilities to customers.
“Some businesses say they have the best people in the industry and PS Professional can help them demonstrate that. Existing technical certifications are great but they focus on product depth not width. The world has changed and today’s consultant needs to be agile. In the future there will be less of a need for functional experts and a demand for deep generalists,” says Sean Craig, Managing Director EMEA at Learning Tree International.
For organizations looking to deploy well-rounded consultants and deal with the increasingly frustrating theme of talent retention then PS Professional can provide a clearly defined learning path. For consultants looking for personal and commercial effectiveness which will encourage them to be hand-picked by clients then PS Professional can provide differentiation.
PS Professional recognizes five key areas: Athlete (personal effectiveness), Executive (business), Rainmaker (commercial), Authority (technical) and Catalyst (operational). A practical self-assessment tool helps individuals understand their current skill level and the subsequent gap analysis points them to the most appropriate of the five key areas.
“It has taken five years to develop PS Professional, which I have based on my experiences over 25 years within the IT and telecommunication industries”, said Gary Gamp, founder and lead author of PS Professional. “Companies such as Avaya and Cisco offer their own in-house certification schemes and the likes of PRINCE2®, AgilePM® and ITIL® are also globally recognized. The beauty of PS Professional is that it complements these certifications and does not set out to replace them.”
Currently Foundation level courses are available for all five key areas with Practitioner and Professional level courses scheduled for future release. The underlying aim is to remove the fluff and provide a truly practical accreditation that will shape those in professional services to be the consultants of tomorrow.
For more information about the PS Professional please visit http://psprofessional.com
