Start your research in the At a Glance chapter, which provides a high-level overview of industry data and trends.

The Key Takeaways section at the top of the chapter covers significant performance and external environment trends occurring in the industry. These trends can guide the questions you ask your clients, helping you pinpoint focus areas and potential projects.

Quickly analyze the industry's strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. Use this section to identify key points to investigate further in the rest of the report.

Use the Executive Summary at the bottom of the chapter to get an overview of the industry’s performance over the past five years, how it looks now and what we’re forecasting for the next five years.

The Performance chapter analyzes an industry’s historical and projected performance, helping business valuation professionals assess a company’s market position and growth potential for accurate, defensible valuations.

The Performance Snapshot covers the industry’s past, present and forecast performance. To understand industry trends, you can view the total value or percentage change in revenue, employees, businesses and profit over time.

To include this chart, or any chart in the report, in your own client reports, click the PNG or CSV download options at the bottom of the chart. Learn how to download the whole report or individual chapters in our Downloading Content article.

For insight into what’s driving recent performance trends, reference the analysis in the Current Performance section below the graph.

This section explores industry projections and trends for the next five years. This information gives you a clear picture of where your client’s industry is headed and offers insights into projected revenue changes and other shifts. Ask your clients how they are preparing for these changes and scope out the opportunities they have to be a leader in their field.

The Life Cycle section categorizes an industry and its related industries into life cycle categories based on a range of factors, including:

You can use this information to help drive faster growth for clients operating an industry in a growth phase. For clients operating in mature industries, you can develop strategies to help them maintain their success, recognition and brand awareness. If your client’s industry is in the decline phase, you can advise them on how to survive and thrive with the resources available.

This chapter covers an industry’s products and services, markets and trends in international trade.

The Products and Services section breaks down the main product and service segments in an industry so you can identify strengths or opportunities for expansion in your client's product and service mix.

The Major Markets section provides consultants with a breakdown of the areas that the industry sells to. It gives you insight into areas that your client could be paying closer attention to and includes detailed analysis behind the segmentation.

The Geographic Breakdown chapter covers regional trends and business concentration so you can understand the business landscape, find opportunities and conduct regional benchmarking.

The Business Locations section offers a regional breakdown of key performance indicators. The Business Concentration heat map gives you an immediate picture of the regions with the most significant industry presence.

US and Canada industry subscribers can click on a state or province in the map to access our State and Provincial Reports. State and Provincial Industry Reports cover local performance data and forecasts and highlight regional demographics and economic indicators.

The Companies chapter highlights the industry’s largest players. You can analyze each company by key performance metrics to see how they compare to each other and the broader industry.

This chapter covers in-depth data and analysis on companies with 5% or greater market share. Track company performance and get an analyst's perspective on what’s driving their performance.

For more in-depth company data and insights, this chapter links off to our company reports.

The Call Preparation Questions are a great asset for consultants in the early stages of business engagement. These carefully crafted questions and talking points help you better understand your prospect or client’s needs and how you can assist them. Use these questions to steer the direction of early conversations with stakeholders.

Phil is our conversational, AI-driven research tool that combines the intelligence of large language models with the breadth of our data and analyst-written insights.

You can utilize Phil to quickly synthesize industry data, market trends and competitive analyses. By posing specific queries, Phil gives you AI-driven insights to enhance the precision and efficiency of your assessments. Phil's integration with our robust industry research database ensures that analyses are grounded in up-to-date and reliable information. With Phil, you can streamline your research process to deliver informed, data-backed recommendations to your clients.

Risk Ratings Reports provide a numerical assessment of expected short-term industry risk so you can compare your client’s current position against the broader industry environment.

Subscribers can quickly jump to Risk Ratings Reports through the “Related Industry Products” section of an industry report’s left-hand navigation menu.

These reports rate structural, growth and sensitivity risk factors from 1 to 9, with 1 being the lowest risk and 9 the highest, and weigh them according to their influence on the industry.

You can use the risk score categories to identify specific risk drivers and work with your clients on tactics and strategies for risk mitigation. For example, the Engineering Services in the US industry has a Medium-High Structural risk.

To investigate this further, you can visit the Structural Risk chapter to see a component-level breakdown of the structural risk score.

The level of competition risk here is significantly higher than the other components, bringing up the overall structural risk score. You can use this insight to help your clients understand the industry’s risk landscape and create targeted strategies to mitigate specific risks.

US Segment Benchmarking, accessible to subscribers in the “Related Industry Products” section of an industry report’s table of contents, breaks down our industry data by employee size segments so you can compare your client's performance to similar sized operators.

For example, as of 2024, operators with 100-499 employees make up 62.42% of the Solar Power in the US industry’s revenue. If your client falls into this group, you can click the segment in the table below the chart for segment specific benchmarking data.

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