New York SBDC Research Network

From MarketingProfs : For over 60 years, the Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) system has served as a widely accepted structure for the analysis of businesses participating in the US economy. Marketers have long looked to the SIC system and its predecessor—the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS)—to simplify the processes behind identifying, segmenting, and targeting potential customers and prospects. But what if you don't have a lot of marketing experience in an industry? Perhaps you are just starting out and need to quickly understand the makeup of your potential customers and prospects, and profile them. Understanding SIC and NAICS can seem like a daunting task, but having a cursory comprehension of these systems can help you support various marketing activities. The US Census Bureau assigns one code to each establishment based on its primary activity (generally the activity that generates the most revenue). Classification codes are typically deri...

The key to providing good industry research is knowing where to look. Sometimes I start doing research on an industry and am not sure where to start looking. I have found the website ValuationResources.com to be incredibly helpful when I have difficulty locating information. According to the site, "ValuationResources.com is a free guide to business valuation resources, industry and company information, economic data, and more. Designed as a comprehensive resource guide for business appraisers, the site's audience includes a broad mix of business owners, professionals, students, and other parties interested in business valuation and industry information." Although the information listed in the guide isn't always available free of charge, knowing where to find the information is a step in the right direction. For resource guides specific to a particular industry, see Industry Information Resources , which covers more than 400 individual industries in the following ...

Occasionally, we've gotten questions about "technology" or "high tech". While we can get reports, there is no one business code that encompasses such a broad category. The AeA, formerly the American Electronics Association, "uses 45 SIC codes to define the high-technology industry." The organization recognizes that " these 45 SIC codes do not comprehensively cover the entire high-tech industry as the structure of the SIC system is limited. In an effort to produce solid statistics, AeA's definition consists of SIC codes that fall into three broad categories -- high-tech manufacturing, communications services, and software and computer-related services. It does not include broad categories if the high-tech portion does not represent a clear majority. Also, AeA's definition does not include many 'related' industries, such as biotechnology, engineering services, and research and testing services." Likewise, "the 49 NAICS cod...