Business professionals use the following industry report sections to formulate and conduct effective strategic plans.

The About This Industry page, found at the top of the left-hand navigation menu in industry reports, provides an overview of the industry, related industries and additional resources. This page lets you know if you’re in the right report before you dive into the research.

The Performance chapter indicates the industry's health, giving insight into how industry operators are performing currently and how their performance may trend in the future.

Use the Current Performance section to see how your business's performance aligns with the industry's. This section covers how the industry is affected by major events, recent trends, influential businesses within the industry and more. With this analysis in hand, you can monitor for similar trends in your business and better prepare, responding proactively rather than reactively to these factors.

The performance outlook is one of the most valuable tools for strategic planning, using our proprietary forecasting model to project the industry's next five years of growth. You can see how our forecast for the industry compares to where you see your business in the upcoming years.

Our analysis of the outlook for a given industry covers what we project will happen in the industry and, most importantly, why we project specific changes and trends will occur.

The Products and Markets chapter is useful for strategic planning because it gives you insight into areas of opportunity for your business’s product mix.

As you can see from the Products & Services chart for the Refrigerated Storage in the US industry below, 65.7% of industry revenue comes from the storage of goods. In comparison, 24.9% of industry revenue comes from handling goods. Businesses operating in this space can use these insights to see if their revenue streams are aligned with industry norms if there are any opportunities to add more revenue streams, or if there's an opportunity to become more niche and focus on one revenue stream.

The Major Markets section outlines the key downstream markets that an industry is selling to. You can use this section to see how the distribution of an industry’s major markets compares to that of your own business to find opportunities for growth or expansion.

The Geographic Breakdown chapter gives you more granular insight into a given industry at the regional level. While the Products & Markets chapter gives you insight into potential markets and product areas to move into, this chapter provides insight into potential regions to expand into or focus on.

For US and Canada industry reports, clicking into any of the states or provinces within the Business Locations map will bring you to that region's State or Provincial Industry Report.

The State and Provincial Industry Reports are a separate IBISWorld product. Non-subscribers can still find sortable state-level data within the Geographic Breakdown chapter.

The Financial Benchmarks chapter allows you to understand average costs for industry operators and compare financial data against key ratios and financial benchmarks broken down by business size.

The Cost Structure section breaks down where revenue in an industry and sector is spent. You can use this section for strategic planning by comparing your business's revenue distribution to industry averages.

For example, operators in the refrigerated storage industry spend, on average, 0.5% of revenue on marketing. Industry operators conducting research for strategic planning would evaluate if their business spends on marketing and how that may affect their bottom line.

The Companies chapter analyzes the companies with the most influence in the industry, how their operations have fared and which strategies allow them to be successful.

The Market Share section covers the four companies with the highest percentage of market share in the industry. The Industry Market Share by Company chart shows historical data over the past five years to see how the top companies have performed over time.

Below the Market Share chart, you will find more granular information about the top companies in the industry. These sections cover each company's registered name and key brands, size and scope, current and historical financial performance, other industries it operates within and more.

The company information in this chapter also links to our US Company Benchmarking product, which provides even more granular data on companies within a given industry.

US Segment Benchmarking is a separate product that complements the data and insights in US industry reports by breaking industry information down by employee segment sizes. Analyzing industry data by employee segment allows you to understand an industry’s nuances and more accurately compare your business against similar-sized operators.

Subscribers can access the US Segment Benchmarking product in the Related Industry Products section of an industry report’s left-hand navigation menu.

As you can see in the breakdown of total industry revenue for the refrigerated storage industry below, the market share for smaller businesses (0-4 employees) and larger businesses (500+ employees) is increasing while the market share for medium-sized businesses is decreasing. Analysis of this data could show that smaller businesses are entering the market while large businesses are buying out medium-sized businesses.

By clicking on the employee-size segment that correlates with your business, you can see how businesses in that segment are performing and understand what's impacting that segment with our SWOT analysis.

You can find Key Success Factors throughout the chapters in industry reports. They provide chapter-specific insight into how operators find success in the industry. This information is consolidated in the Key Success Factors page, found below the chapters in a report's table of contents. Key Success Factors help you compare your business's performance to the factors that drive performance in the industry. You can go through each factor and evaluate if your business is allocating resources in these areas and if your business is operating at peak efficiency.

The Call Preparation Questions chapter is a great starting point for a strategic planning session. It provides industry-relevant questions broken down into specific roles and internal and external influences.

If your business is conducting a strategic planning session, you can print out this chapter, hand it out to stakeholders, and ask the group these questions about your business.

You can find the Call Preparation Questions page in the Related Industry Products section of a report’s left-hand navigation menu.

For additional questions regarding IBISWorld for strategic planning, please contact your Client Relationship Manager. If you don’t have an IBISWorld account, please contact us to learn more about our membership options.