Professional Business Services for SMEs

How important are Professional Service Firms to MSME businesses?

He has only one head, how can he possibly wear multiple hats? Answer: He's a small-business owner, torn between running his business and doing the behind-the-scenes tasks that keep the business humming along. With every task – be it an accounting, a legal or a marketing matter – he switches gears and dons the appropriate hat.
As you may know, this requires some juggling. So, while the answer to another question may elude you, it won't for long: What is a compelling way to reduce the number of hats a small-business owner wears to wearing only one hat?

Answer: by outsourcing the necessary tasks to professional services firms, which have perfected the practice of wearing only one hat.
Small entrepreneurs or MSME entrepreneurs struggle with constant interruptions due to emails, phone calls, and messages. They also deal with busy meeting schedules, last-minute deadlines, and the responsibility to perform multiple job functions. That's why time is such an issue. Administrative work represents a serious challenge to many small business operations.

You can see where this “perfect storm” can converge: There sits the professional services firm, presumably with an arsenal of talent and expertise, ready to be deployed. Because,

Professional services are nonphysical products or services that individuals or companies provide to customers- i.e. to individuals, companies, or organizations, to help them manage or improve a specific area or many areas of their businesses. Professional services help individuals, companies or organizations accomplish tasks or meet goals.

Professional Business Services

for micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs)

Although professional services is a broad term think of professional services as anything that a business owner may need to outsource in order to have more time to spend on their priorities. Professional services companies have specialized knowledge about a particular skill or industry, and their work allows company owners to focus on core business functions. They sell expertise and ideas to help businesses become successful, rather than an actual, tangible product.
The difference between consultants and professional service companies is that consultants may merely offer advice or guidance on a particular function, whereas professional services companies are often responsible for the end result of their work.

The core business processes of a small company do not differ that much from a Fortune 500 company, in essence. Both businesses administrate their day-to-day activities, draft legal contracts, market their products, establish a website, have their logo and corporate identity designed, determine a long-term strategy and pay their taxes. However, due to the limited resources of a small business and the simpler nature of their organizational structure, the advisory needs of smaller companies do differ a lot from the needs of a big enterprise- that has organized all its activities in highly specialized and separate business processes.
In general, smaller businesses try to do as much as possible themselves. And when they need help from an outside service provider it better be advice that is pragmatic and which can directly be implemented into the daily operations without too much hassle.

As said, all companies, from small to big, go through the same business processes and as such are searching for the same type of business services. Typical services needed touch upon the following core business flows:

Professional services

be offered in a variety of roles and fields.
⦁ Legal services
⦁ Funding service
⦁ Enterprise automation
⦁ Warehousing & Logistics
⦁ Product engineering
⦁ Purchase
⦁ Accounting and bookkeeping
⦁ Project management
⦁ Consulting
⦁ Mentoring
⦁ Marketing services
⦁ Sales and distribution service
⦁ Export and import service
⦁ Digital Marketing advise
⦁ E-commerce
⦁ Last mile delivery
⦁ Branding service
⦁ Recruitment- and training
⦁ Interim management
⦁ Tie-up & merging
⦁ Customer service
⦁ Event management
⦁ Creative services, including graphic design
⦁ Client management
⦁ Architecture
⦁ IT services, and more