There are certainly opportunities to succeed in this market. If independent service providers are going to take advantage of them, they must differentiate themselves from the rest of the market, and nothing sets the independent apart from the crowd better than the fact that they know abstracting, in the context of their local areas, better than anyone.

However, while this is a distinct advantage, there are two critical obstacles to getting that message out to clients and convincing them to use your services. Once the obstacles are understood, the opportunities and challenges become clearer.