In the current business environment, companies need to be able to respond quickly to changing customer demands. To do so, they must be able to optimize sales, provide fulfillment services, and grow brands on retail platforms. These functions are often performed by a business service company, which focuses on supporting Retailers, Distributors, Health Practitioners, Manufacturers, or Suppliers in areas such as transportation/logistics, demonstration/sampling, promotions, packaging, and brand management. Businesses that perform business services can be large or small and can operate in a variety of industries, including automotive, manufacturing, consumer goods, energy, and healthcare.
A business service is a service that enables a company to achieve its strategic goals. A business service is intangible and does not result in the creation of a tangible product, but it can be produced and delivered through digital means. Business services are typically a component of a larger system that includes the customer-facing system of engagement, which consists of a service catalog and portal, and the back-end systems of record, which manage services grouped by objective, capability, organization, and geography.
Practitioner insight: As you identify a business service, test it with its intended consumers to get input into strong use cases. Avoid relying on the business capability or process owners to do this as their perspective may be biased towards how they perceive the service.
The business services industry is booming, as more and more companies seek to outsource noncore activities. This allows them to focus on their core competencies and to save money at the same time. In addition, it frees up more internal resources for innovation and growth. Outsourcing can also help businesses become more agile and adapt to a fast-changing market environment, as they can quickly respond to changing customer needs.
With new communication technologies and infrastructures, businesses are expanding their reach to serve customers around the world. As a result, it is more common for companies to have multiple locations and offer services in different regions. For example, a global shipping and logistics company might have warehouses in several cities to provide faster service.
The key to successful service delivery is building a solid foundation. This requires defining business services and service offerings based on availability, scope, pricing, etc. It is important to map the underlying dependencies of each business service, as well as creating OLAs and SLAs for all service delivery components. Finally, it is important to subscribe users to business service offerings so that they only see relevant items in the Service Catalogue. This improves the Employee Experience and helps organizations to avoid overprovisioning services that are not used or needed.