B2B Services, BPO Outsourcing and Tech-enabled Services

BUSINESS SERVICES

Rising share of global economic output

Business-related services are a large, rapidly developing industry with an increasing share of global economic output. The industry comprises differentiated business models at specialized service companies, outsourcing solutions and new technology-driven B2B services, and many sectors are recording above-average growth rates. The industry is diversified and includes numerous sectors, including business process outsourcing (BPO), construction services, facility services, logistics services, education services, human resources services, and consulting services.

A rapidly changing industry

The core driver for the robust growth of the business-related services industry is an attractive market environment with increased buyer demand for quality and speed of services. Customer organizations can thus concentrate their resources on their core competencies, increase efficiency and make cost structures more flexible.

Despite steadily growing demand, the industry is characterized by special challenges: the increasing shortage of skilled workers limits growth, rising personnel costs jeopardize stable returns and are difficult to implement as price increases, increasing commoditization increases price pressure due to comparability and interchangeability, and growing professionalization and the rising share in tenders intensify price competition.

In addition, various sectors are subject to strong pressure to change created by current developments, especially digitization, the hybridization of industry, and deregulation and offshoring.

Challenges through innovation, technology and efficiency

For providers in the business services industry, the challenges and upheavals of the market environment are creating new opportunities through faster innovation, increased use of technology and greater efficiency.

Established providers are working to develop more integrated service offerings, which is often solved through consolidation, and to achieve efficiency gains, especially through increased use of technology and digitization. New market entrants and active players are primarily focusing on new technology platforms for digitization and automation as a more cost-effective model with high scalability.

Insights: Consolidation – Service Portfolio Expansion – Technology and Digitalization

The rapidly changing service industry and the transition from traditional service providers and outsourcing solution specialists to technology-driven platform models are creating new market potential. Active players and investors can make their company one of the leading players in their sector by consolidating, expanding the service portfolio and developing technology-driven business models.

In our experience, skill shortages, regulatory issues, scalability, and operational efficiency are often of particular importance in business service investment decisions. The supply of resources and the associated costs of growth for personnel-intensive services, the regulatory framework conditions for expansion and internationalization, and operational scaling, taking into account the complexity costs that arise, must be answered with strategic concepts at an early stage of an investment. In addition to these topics, service portfolio expansion, its tailoring and implementation via strategic cooperations with specialists, solution models through partnering or targeted acquisitions are also critical to success for an investment.

Our industry expertise

Focus of our project experience in the sub-sectors

  • Call center (inbound and outbound services for different verticals, e.g. travel industry, e-commerce, telecom industry)
  • Billing management (e.g. for statutory health insurers, energy suppliers)
  • Translation services (manual translation, technology-assisted translation)
  • Virtual secretarial services (e.g. remote secretarial services, technology-enabled reception services)
  • Construction site services (e.g. dewatering services, construction equipment rental, construction site and traffic safety, excavator mattresses).
  • Damage restoration (e.g. water, fire and natural hazard damage restoration, drying services, trenchless sewer rehabilitation).
  • Construction of sports facilities (e.g. artificial turf, synthetic surfaces, running tracks)
  • Infrastructure construction (e.g. civil engineering line laying for fiber-optic broadband networking)
  • Building automation (e.g. HVAC heating/air conditioning/ventilation/refrigeration, fire protection systems)
  • Technical building services (e.g. heating and water metering services, air and air conditioning maintenance, fire safety inspection)
  • Infrastructure Building Services (e.g., catering services, laundry and textile services, garden and landscape maintenance, electronic security services and remote monitoring).
  • Commercial real estate service providers (e.g. project development for residential construction, online broker for real estate brokerage, digital real estate financing platform)
  • Express logistics (e.g. special delivery service providers, courier service providers, special speed logistics)
  • Industrial contract logistics (3PL) (full-service special logistics provider e.g. for chemical and steel industry, large medical equipment, food refrigerated transports)
  • 4PL service provider (e.g. aftermarket/spare parts logistics for high-tech, medtech, agriculture and automotive)
  • Pooling network service providers (e.g., closed-pooling network for reusable transport layer pads for the glass bottle beverage industry, open-pooling service providers for pallets)
  • Event logistics (e.g. event logistics, trade fair logistics)
  • e-Logistics/LogTech (e.g. cloud-based logistics platforms, logistics broker portals)
  • Childcare (e.g. daycare centers, private kindergarten operators).
  • Tutoring service providers (e.g., tutoring brokerage, virtual one-on-one tutoring platform, online and offline small group tutoring).
  • Adult education (e.g. qualification of job seekers, vocational retraining and continuing education)
  • EduTech (various eLearning technologies e.g. virtual classroom, online live and on-demand technologies, and hybrid training formats).
  • Recruitment services (e.g. specialized temporary employment service providers for IT specialists, engineers, commercial staff, lawyers, doctors)
  • HR outsourcing services (e.g. payroll, travel expense management, benefit administration)
  • Job boards (e.g. job ad portals, social media platforms)
  • HR Tech (software applications for HR services, e.g. time management, payroll, as well as HR management, e.g. recruiting, learning, talent management)
  • Print marketing service providers (e.g. advertising brochure printing service providers for retail chains, GEO data-supported distribution of brochure advertising)
  • Marketing technology service providers (e.g. web analytics platforms for customer tracking and marketing automation)
  • Media monitoring service providers (e.g. media and marketing intelligence providers)
  • Specialized information media (e.g. multimedia B2B specialized information, B2B e-learning platforms, industry databases, tender databases)
  • IT consultancies (e.g. ERP consultancies, CRM consultancies, ECM consultancies)
  • InsurTech (digital service providers for e.g. automated motor vehicle claims settlement, complex foreign accidents)
  • LegalTech (e.g. digital platform for insolvency and commercial law firms)
  • Credit information service provider (e.g. credit agency for credit information, credit management, identity check)
  • Treasury Management Services (e.g. cloud-based TMS platforms for treasury, payments and working capital processes)
  • Receivables management services (e.g. cloud-based solutions for receivables, collections and credit management)
  • Payment service providers (digital platforms for cashless payment solutions, e.g. for offline retail, online retail, airlines)

Our contact persons

Dr. Sigurd Kitzer

Dr. Sigurd Kitzer

Athanasios Sarakatsanis

Athanasios Sarakatsanis