Business services are activities that support a business but do not produce a physical product. Examples include information technology (IT), marketing, and business consulting. Companies that don’t have the resources to provide these services in-house often outsource them. This enables them to focus on their core operations and save money by not having to pay for salaries and benefits for employees who would otherwise be needed to perform these functions.

The service-oriented architecture model (SOA) is an architectural style that defines a set of hardware and software infrastructure components as a collection of services that deliver a business outcome. The SOA approach is a key component of the business service management (BSM) framework, which includes processes, policies, and practices that ensure quality and align with business goals. The business services of an organization can be categorized as supporting, core and critical. The supporting and core services are the underlying infrastructure that supports all other services, and the critical services are those that must be operational to achieve business outcomes. The BSM process focuses on ensuring these key services are resilient and available, as well as providing visibility into the performance of those services.

In SL1, you can select one or more business services to always display at the top of the Business Services page by clicking the star icon next to each service. This is called favoriting a service. You can also remove a favorite service by clicking the star icon again.

The business services industry has boomed in recent years, partly because many of these activities are a good fit for outsourcing. For example, a company that sells products online can outsource customer support, billing, and payment processing to third-party vendors. Outsourcing these tasks frees up time and space in the company’s internal IT department for more important work. It can also reduce costs by eliminating the need to maintain in-house IT staff and hardware, which is costly and time consuming.

However, there are still obstacles that must be overcome to fully realize the potential of the business services sector. These challenges include poor productivity, legal barriers, and low levels of competition. The European Union’s Internal Market legislation and policy actions aim to remove these barriers and stimulate competitiveness in the business services sector. The resulting increase in productivity should lead to higher economic growth, as well as increased job opportunities and better living standards for business services sector workers. In addition, the new jobs created in this sector should contribute to a sustainable and more environmentally friendly economy. This is especially important in the face of global climate change, which requires businesses to operate more efficiently and reduce their carbon footprint. The increased productivity will also help improve the economic stability of the EU’s member states. This will, in turn, improve the overall quality of life in Europe and attract more business investment. This will create an even more robust business services sector and boost employment in the region.