Business services are the intangible and non-physical services used by businesses for their operations. They are a vital component for numerous industries and act as the backbone of many a successful company. These services include, but are not limited to, those related to banking, transportation, warehousing and insurance. They also comprise the services that help businesses to communicate with their customers and employees. The most common and essential of these services are those provided by banks, which include accepting payments, e-banking, taking checks and providing credit lines; insurance companies which help insure plants, machinery, vehicles and products; transportation companies for moving raw material and finished goods; warehouses to store the materials and goods; communication services like telecom, postal and courier services for communicating with employees and customers; etc.
Service-oriented architecture provides a way to structure automated business logic so that it is flexible and responsive to change. This can significantly improve the ability of a system to respond to business changes in an effective manner, by making it easier to re-compose services that are part of the business model.
One of the biggest challenges for service businesses is that, unlike product-based businesses, their success is not dependent on the quality of the physical product they produce. Instead, service-based companies must focus on creating an experience that their target audience values and is willing to pay for. This can be achieved through a process known as service design, which requires a shift in perspective for managers: from thinking about what buyers will value to considering how they are actually going to experience the product or service.