Business Services

Business services are all the support functions that a company requires to function successfully. These include advertising, marketing and consultation, logistics (including travel and facilities services), waste handling, staffing services and shipping to name just a few. Nearly every company in operation needs at least one of these services. Business services are unique in that they don’t involve the manufacture of a physical product and are usually provided by an outside service provider, such as an accounting firm or a business consulting firm.

Unlike manufacturing, business services are intangible and can not be stored for future use. They are often produced and consumed at the same time, meaning that a service provider and its customer interact during the production process. In addition, the consumption of a service usually takes place at the site where it is delivered and cannot be shipped to a different location for use later like a physical product can.

These factors make the business services industry more susceptible to changes in economic conditions. For example, if the cost of labor in the country where a business operates rises significantly, it will likely have to pay more for its business services. Another factor influencing the business services industry is increased consumer affluence. As consumers have become wealthier, they have tended to outsource more of their home maintenance and leisure activities, such as cleaning and lawn care services.

In order to compete, businesses that provide business services must continually strive to keep their prices low and their quality high. They also need to find new ways of delivering their services. For example, if a traditional service requires the consumer to come to them in person, such as a TV repairperson or a plumber, they need to find a way to deliver their service at the customer’s house or office instead.

As the world becomes more globalized, the need for business services is increasing as companies expand and operate in more locations. For example, many companies have consolidated their IT, HR and procurement services into a single team located in a lower-cost region of the world in order to cut costs and increase efficiency. This model is known as global business services and can be applied to front-office functions as well, such as marketing and sales, which require a large amount of data analytics to drive decision making.

The following table presents statistics relating to employment and unemployment in the professional and business services supersector group. These statistics include the number of full-time and part-time jobs, industry unemployment rates, union membership and representation, gross job gains and losses and projections for occupational employment change. This table is updated periodically and reflects the most recent information available. The table includes a list of industries and their related subsectors that can be filtered by their names, numbers of employees and total jobs. It also shows an industry’s percentage of total employment within the supersector. The industry with the highest percentage of total employment is the education and health services supersector, with a share of 35%.