Knowledge intensive business services

Consequently, KIBS usually have other businesses as their main clients, though the public sector and sometimes voluntary organisations can be important customers, and to some extent households will feature as consumers of, for instance, legal and accountancy services.

The first discussion of KIBS to use the term seems to have been in a 1995 report to the European Commission "Knowledge-Intensive Business Services: Users, Carriers and Sources of Innovation" [2] In the decade since this appeared these sectors of the economy have continued to outperform most other sectors, and have accordingly attracted a good deal of research and policy attention.

By strategically managing client co-production, service providers can improve operational efficiency, develop more optimal solutions [sic], and generate a sustainable competitive advantage.

"[3] The European Monitoring Centre on Change (EMCC) has published online a number of reports and studies of KIBS.

KIBS firms are simply specialists in these service activities, which these are their main products.