Professional services businesses provide a diverse range of knowledge and support services, leveraging intellectual capital to build strong brands and lasting client relationships.

Providers of professional services undertake activities that range from consultancy through to training.  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 among US corporates to outsource many of these services, responding to the emergence of domestic and international businesses that can deploy focused intellectual capital and meet the needs of demanding global clients.

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

• Creating a compelling brand.  For service providers, the loss of key staff can disrupt major contracts.  Providers that manage this risk well do so by building a powerful, differentiated brand that preserves continuity when individuals change.
• Expanding the offering.  Agile operators are completely focused on client needs, searching for opportunities to enhance their range of services through profitable new activities.
• 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 acquired company’s former owners) to stay with the business and deliver results.  The ability to incentivise staff through equity participation can be a key differentiator.
• Offshoring.  Undertaking services remotely, often in Asia or Latin America, gives US businesses the chance to tap into highly-educated, lower-cost pools of talent, ideally-suited to a wide range of activities, from investment research to preparation of client proposals.
  

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