Providers of ‘white collar’ services undertake activities that range from consultancy (covering, for example, engineering, environmental and recruitment) through to training and process outsourcing.  These services are powered by the intellectual capital of the providers, which creates both opportunities and challenges.  Financial returns can be high for those who deliver innovation and add value to their clients’ thought processes.  The ability to grow these businesses is, however, critically dependent on being able to access and motivate the right people and direct them into the right markets.

The last five years have seen an increasing willingness amongst corporates to outsource core white collar services, while we have also seen the emergence of international businesses capable of transferring intellectual capital between geographies and supporting the requirements of increasingly global clients.

At 3i, we aim to partner providers who successfully harness the key drivers of the market:

• Creating a compelling brand.  For service providers, the loss of key staff can threaten major contracts.  Providers that manage this risk well do so by building a powerful, differentiated brand that preserves continuity when individuals change.
• Managing well – particularly acquisitions.  People businesses demand high standards of management, but this is even more so when making acquisitions.  To justify acquisitive growth, the new owners need the key value creators (often the former owners) to stay with the business and deliver results.  The ability to incentivise staff through equity participation can be a key differentiator.
• Expanding the offering.  Agile operators are completely focused on client needs, searching for opportunities to enhance their range of services through profitable new activities.
• Offshoring.  Undertaking services remotely, often in Asia, gives European businesses the chance to tap into highly-educated, lower-cost pools of talent, ideally-suited to a wide range of activities, from investment research and design to preparation of client proposals.
  

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