The report below gives a good overview of the Spring 2021 M&A activity in the Business Services Industry Sector.
The global demand for the business services reached an all-time high in the first quarter of 2021 as per research published by Information Services Group. The Business Services industry is poised for faster growth in 2021 as the economy begins to recover from the pandemic and enterprises continue to make digital transformation. The global annual contract value (ACV) in the first quarter of 2021, which is a measure of outsourced contracts, reached a record of $17.1 billion, which is up by 11% over 2020 and up by 4% from the fourth quarter of 2020. Service providers are focused on meeting needs of the customer by focusing on cloud modernization, cost optimization, and helping customers create resilient and agile operations along with personalized omnichannel experiences.
The cloud-based as-a-service market increased by 15%, to a record $9.9 billion, in the first quarter of 2021, but growth decelerated from the fourth quarter of 2020, when it was up 26% year over year. Managed services ACV, reached $7.2 billion in the first quarter of 2021, up 7% year over year, due to strong growth in Europe. Infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) generated $7.2 billion of ACV, up 18% versus year over year and Software-as-a-service (SaaS) generated $2.7 billion of ACV, up 7% year over year. BPO ACV, increased 43% from the prior year, to $1.4 billion.