The choice of your business is largely determined by the economic prospects of a particular activity. A novice entrepreneur should pay attention to the rapidly developing sector of the Russian economy - the service sector.
The service sector is a set of activities aimed at the production and sale of services to the population.
Since the late nineties, the attitude of the state towards the production and delivery of services to the population has changed. Over the past years, the share of the service sector in GDP has significantly increased, but nevertheless, Russia lags behind these countries in Europe and the USA. Thus, the US economy is sometimes called the service economy, since the share of service in the US GDP is 77%.
In addition, the service sector plays an important role in the employment of the population. The production of services in some cases does not require large investments and guarantees job creation and economic stability. In other cases, it will ensure the improvement and development of industry.
Today, the service sector is being improved significantly, new technologies and modern forms of service and interaction with customers are being introduced, business activity and competition among service companies are increasing.
The classifications and characteristics of services are different according to the selected criteria. However, we can highlight some that give a general idea of this type of entrepreneurial activity as a service sector.
By the criterion of “population needs”: services for the production of material goods (consumer services, transportation, communications), for the production of spiritual goods (education, science, physical education and sports, art), production in the social sphere (housing and communal services, healthcare, trade).
According to the criterion of "tangibility - intangibility" Lovelock distinguishes:
a) services, which are tangible actions that are aimed at the human body (healthcare, sports and tourism, catering, transportation, beauty salons and hairdressers, etc.);
b) services, which are tangible actions that are aimed at other physical objects (freight transport, veterinary services, repair and maintenance of equipment, domestic services);
c) services, which are intangible actions aimed at the human consciousness (media, information, education, cultural institutions);
d) services representing intangible actions with intangible assets (insurance, banks, legal services and others)
According to the criterion, “economically significant prices” are divided into market (transport, trade, education, healthcare, domestic, financial intermediation, and others) and non-market (science, free education and medicine, defense, management)
According to the criterion “object of the provision of services”, the European Union distinguishes three types: a) for the consumer (car repair, beauty salons, catering, hotel business, etc.); b) for business (legal, audit, consulting, information, computer, wholesale, and others); c) for the consumer and business.
It is necessary to pay attention to such a factor in the development of the service sector as territorial distribution. Each region, due to its natural and ethnic characteristics, forms a defined set of consumer services. It should be noted that, nevertheless, the volume of paid services in Russia in recent years has increased markedly.
So, if the service sector is the final choice of a novice businessman, then it is necessary to have some features of services in the form. Services are produced and consumed at the same time, so their marketing depends on the qualifications of the pesonal. They are intangible, therefore, an important factor in the economic growth of an enterprise is consumer confidence. There are difficulties in the allocation and accounting of services.