Services

This page provides statistical information, facts and market data business services and skilled labor. This includes information on topics and industry segments such as consulting, market research, staffing & personnel, call centers, facility management, and outsourcing.

Outsourcing can be broadly defined as the outplacement or contracting of certain production stages of a product or a service to an external service provider. This is done mostly to save costs and to not use one’s own resources for it. Subsegments of the outsourcing industry are for example information technology outsourcing (ITO), business process outsourcing (BPO), recruitment process outsourcing (RPO), legal process outsourcing (LPO), and knowledge process outsourcing (KPO).

Consulting companies like McKinsey, Bain & Company, Deloitte, Accenture, PriceWaterhouseCoopers, Ernst & Young and KPMG offer a diverse set of professional services and generate billions of dollars in revenue. The combined revenue of the so-called “Big Four” companies (Ernst&Young, PwC, Deloitte, KPMG), in relation to auditing and accounting, amounts to more than 100 billion U.S. dollars. Each of these four companies employs more than 100 thousand people worldwide.

The market research industry thrives to gather, analyze and interpret information about a service and/or market. Amongst the leading companies in the industry are, for example, Nielsen and the Kantar Group. Both of these companies generate more than three billion U.S. dollars in annual revenue. According to the American Marketing Association, more than 35 thousand people were employed in the industry in the United States.

Global sales of staffing and personnel services (agency work industry) amount to more than 250 billion U.S. dollars each year according to the International Confederation of Private Employment Agencies (Ciett). The U.S. market for temporary and contract staffing has an annual sales volume of around 100 billion U.S. dollars. Leading companies in the industry include Randstad, Manpower, Adecco, Kelly Services and the Allegis Group.

Facility management services, which include for example building fabric, air conditioning, plumbing & drainage, fire safety system and lift & escalator maintenance, but also services such as cleaning, security, handyman services and waste disposal, are often provided by companies that specialize in these services or offer these services as part of a broader portfolio. The French food services and facilities management company Sodexo and the American company Aramark are examples of such companies. The Fluor Corporation, rooted in the construction industry, is another example of a company providing facility management services.