简短的
自2010年以来，商业服务部门一直是私募股权最活跃的狩猎场之一。在此期间，它占投资价值的12％和全球交易数量的23％。PE基金平均每年达到750多个商业服务交易，价值480亿美元。
The appeal is clear: The sector has enjoyed a strong set of technology-enabled growth trends made stronger by the long economic expansion. Chronic talent shortages and increased outsourcing of noncore business activities have spurred demand for everything from IT, legal and market analytics expertise to logistics, business process outsourcing (BPO) and janitorial services. PE investors have benefited from steady organic growth and the opportunity to execute lucrativebuy-and-build strategiesto create scale players. That, plus a healthy dose of multiple expansion, has led to strong, consistent returns.
But whether the momentum can continue, especially in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, will hinge on PE funds’ willingness to alter their investment approach to the sector.
A new ball game
It’s not that the future for business services isn’t still bright. While the sharp slowdown in global economic activity due to the pandemic will inevitably hurt short-term demand for outsourced services, the longer-term outlook in most subsectors remains relatively strong (see Figure 1). The challenge is that asset price multiples remain at record levels (as is the case for nearly all industries), suggesting that investors will need additional sources of upside in the future. It’s also true that many key sectors are already well along the outsourcing penetration curve, meaning the pace of growth may soften over time. Taken together, these issues suggest that creating the kind of value PE investors have become accustomed to will require deploying a new set of strategies.
大多数商业服务部门都受到了COVID-19危机的短期打击，但需求可能会随着时间的流逝而恢复
分解哪些因素对该行业在当前周期中的令人印象深刻的回报概述了挑战（见图2）。商业服务交易几乎完全依靠收入增长（通常是通过合并和收购）和多次扩展；bob体育登陆利润的提高不是一个因素。这意味着很明显：随着一线增长和多重扩展变得更加难以产生，尤其是在经济放缓的情况下，销售的赞助商将不得不更加努力地在企业的基本面上努力，以改善现金流并产生回报。
收入增长和多重扩张（而不是余量提高）历史上有驱动的业务领域的回报
好消息是，有足够的机会在大多数商业服务公司中建立价值。实际上，COVID放缓提供了重新制作成本结构并改善服务方式的机会。通常，BPO和专业服务公司是通过收购来建立的，增加规模和市场份额的竞赛都在消耗。专注于收入增长，诸如集成采集，合理化的G＆A支出，优化Salesforce行为和集成IT系统等事情的能力更少。目标也几乎没有时间来创新自动化和数字技术，以提高效率和增强服务。专注于这些内部功能可以赢得很多快速的胜利，随着时间的流逝，它可以改变公司的收入轨迹。
从内而外创建价值
根据我们的经验，四个重点领域可以带来最大的影响：优化服务交付，改善操作模型，创建更加专注，更有效的商业组织，并将数字技术应用于您所做的一切。
Service delivery.根据业务服务子部门的不同，全职薪水可以占整体成本结构的70％。因此，在管理人员并优化他们用于提供服务的过程方面，通常会有足够的改进空间。例如，呼叫中心员工处理各种任务，可以同时提高人员配备灵活性并改善服务。离岸某些过程并自动化其他过程可以产生明显的效率。杂货后的通配符将是对服务的需求变化，因为公司适应了新的事物。但是，这可能是一个机会，让他们积极预期变革并创新新的方式来满足不断发展的客户需求的机会。
Operating model.商业服务公司，尤其是那些通过收购缝合在一起的公司，不必担心要优化操作模型以匹配他们提供的服务的面包和燃料业务。但是，复杂性的快速增长和缺乏组织融合最终会造成混乱和效率低下，几乎一开始就不可感知地。从一张干净的纸开始是关键。放缓是零基数产品和流程的好时机 - 通过服务方式来思考应该交付与过去如何交付。这也是定义明确的关键任务角色和报告行，与合适的人一起填补这些角色，合理的激励措施并灌输新行为的好时机。这类在战es中的工作可以创建一个更敏捷，适合的组织。
Commercial excellence.Business services companies have traditionally focused on initiatives like salesforce optimization to improve top-line performance—and that should remain a priority. But there is also a cost angle to creating a smarter, more focused sales organization that has gotten less attention. It involves giving teams the tools, processes and training to help them be most efficient and productive. One example: data scraping tools that provide salespeople with core information about a prospect. Traditionally, teams relied on sales support to do this grunt work. But scraping is a more efficient way to capture the data.
数字的.如今，与任何行业一样，技术在产品方面和后台都在改变业务服务。正确的投资可以同时改善服务交付，提高质量并降低成本。毫不奇怪，数字新兴也正在破坏现状。
一个很好的例子是莫德里亚（Modria），这是泰勒技术部队的一个单位，在Covid-19之前，它已经在在线争议解决方面建立了强大的业务。Modria专门研究电子商务，保险和其他小额索赔 - 类型的纠纷，使用数字界面和人工智能来降低原本非常昂贵，耗时的过程的成本。平均案件需要六天的时间来解决（在法庭上几个星期），并消除了对昂贵的法律建议的需求。莫德里亚目前专注于美国，但在加拿大和欧盟和中国正在扩展。这也是机会主义：随着共同危机的袭击，其父母引入了名为Tyler Virtual Court的申请，允许关闭的法院完全在网上进行会议。
Faced with the threat of disruption, incumbent business services companies need to get faster and smarter. Ultimately, that may require a back-office transformation—integrating IT systems and migrating to the cloud—especially for buy-and-build companies that are getting by with a thicket of different legacy technologies. But a digital focus can also produce important wins on the front end, particularly through robotic process automation.
A large BPO company based in the UK faced a typical challenge. Having grown rapidly through acquisition with little attention to integration, the company eventually began to trip over its own cost structure and complexity. Setting it right required intervention on various fronts: a complete zero-basing of the G&A cost structure and a transformation of the operating model to deploy workforce tools and rationalize spans and layers. The company also optimized its IT systems by increasing offshore development and eliminating legacy systems.
What changed the game for this company and its clients, however, was building an internal capability dedicated to automating repetitive, mistake-prone processes that were both labor intensive and costly. The new capability was not an attempt to bring everything in house, but a center of automation excellence that could create partnerships, assemble resources and help scale automation across the company.
这导致了令人印象深刻的节省。在典型的情况下，该公司开始为每年被此类请求淹没的客户管理客户退款流程。以前，审查退款是通过索赔进行分类并将其与有记录的事实进行比较的复杂手动练习，这是一个令人麻木的过程，需要专门的客户服务代表组。通过构建机器人自动进行分类，该过程变得更便宜，更快，更准确。
在另一种情况下，服务提供商帮助医疗保健客户自动化流程以计算福利，验证注册并确保按时将癌症筛查信件按时发送给合适的患者。在旧系统下，该机构将制定一份应该收到筛选信的人的清单，团队将手动发送他们。该过程不仅效率低下，而且这种关键通信的错误率不可接受。用机器人技术自动化该过程的三重好处是消除人为错误，降低临床风险和降低成本。
后议程
与全球经济中的每个部门一样，COVID-19的经济影响对商业服务公司提出了主要挑战。然而，它也提供了一个独特的开放，可以重新设置您的业务以供下一章增长。从经济衰退中加速的公司将重点放在几个关键问题上，因为它们在接下来的12到24个月中绘制了课程：
- What is the demand outlook for the specific services, customer segments and geographies in which this business competes?
- What do we have to do to win amid the change—i.e., what new channels are required, or how do service offerings need to evolve?
- 鉴于这些更改，我们应该如何以不同的方式提供服务？需要对操作模型进行哪些更改？成本外卖的机会是什么？我们需要多少投资？
- 将我们带到那里的数字路线图是什么？我们可以使用技术更有效地与客户互动，增强交付，推动成本或提高价值主张？
Business services still offers private equity investors the opportunity to generate strong returns. But as the historical sources of value ebb in a weakening economy, the formula for success is changing, too. To win in a more difficult environment, funds will have to think harder about how to use digital and operational excellence to create stronger, more efficient competitors.