The Industry Knowledge Graph™ is a comprehensive knowledge graph (graph database) that connects industry-specific information and company-specific information, providing valuable insights and data relationships regarding the most relevant information for making strategic decisions.

In great part, the industry data provided leverages the intellectual frameworks described by Michael E. Porter in his landmark book “Competitive Advantage” (1985).

One or more products and / or services that are:

1. Direct substitutes
2. Sold by one or more entities (businesses, sole proprietors, companies, government agencies, unions, or any entity that offers something)
3. To one or more external customers (consumers, businesses, governments, or any other entity that buys something)
4. Requires similar activities (similar value chains) to produce the product or provide the service (hence, milk from a cow, a goat, or an almond nut are distinct industries).

[Source: Industry Building Blocks LLC].

We cover all industries. If we learn about an industry we don’t have, we say “oops!” and then we go ahead and add it.

A term created by Michael E. Porter and popularized in his books “Competitive Strategy” (1979) and “Competitive Advantage” (1985). The “five forces” are the key entities that determine industry structure and industry attractiveness. The 5 forces include: current industry competitors, buyers, vendors, substitutes, and potential new entrants.

Yes. Most significantly, the IBB industry data is different from what all other industry data providers because it uniquely uses the IBB industry Classification System (ICS) which is more granular than all other popular ICSs. For example, paper towels are viewed as an “industry” with a unique story about competitors, vendors, buyers, substitutes, product varieties, etc. This, in turn, enables us to uniquely define what granular industries companies compete in.

For example, Byrne Dairy competes in 35 industries including: Ice Cream Cookie Sandwich Manufacturing, Ricotta Cheese Manufacturing, Fresh Chicken Egg Production, Butter Manufacturing, Chocolate Milk Manufacturing, Greek Yogurt manufacturing, Pure Juice and Frozen Desserts Wholesale Distribution Services, as well as Gas Stations with Convenience Stores.

It helps businesses make much more informed decisions by offering the most strategically relevant industry and company information.

USE CASES Include:

• View the analysis of a company (competitor, vendor, channel, business client, your own firm) by granular industry.
• Compare two companies, side-by-side, at the granular industry level (for M&A, JV, CI or vendor selection).
• Define broad market areas by granular industry. (TAM, etc.)
• View (five forces) industry analyses for any of the > 24,000 industries.

Yes, we continually add data. This includes adding more data to existing Industries and existing Organizations, as well as adding new Industries and additional Organizations to our global model. Up-to-date key metrics on the total number of Industries (> 24,000) and the total number of Organizations (> 14,000) and other global statistics are highlighted on the top row of the Industry Universe by
Global Economy and
by Supersector
. by Sector
. . by Subsector
. . . and by Industry Group.

The total revenue of all industries combined. For many, it’s a much simpler and more logical measure of the global economy than global GDP. Most importantly, the components of IUTR are the industries themselves – the key building blocks of the economy. The biggest difference between global GDP and IUTR (among many) is that global GDP focuses on the “final value” of goods and services produced – and therefore – the government eliminates real revenues (aka: does not count the value of intermediate goods and services as they pass through different stages of production).
The IUTR will always be higher.

FOR INDUSTRY SELECTION

• What industries make up Market Area X? (e.g., for Cheese Manufacturing)
• Which industries in Market Area X provide a physical service? (e.g., in Chemicals Manufacturing, list the industries that provide a physical service)
• Which industries include the text “X” in the industry name? (e.g., list the industries with the term “Robot” in the industry name)
• Which industries target “X” (e.g., target a specific buyer type, decision maker, or select from a long list of other criteria. In addition to our many default options, we can create highly customized criteria to select from the more than 24,000 industries.)

FOR COMPANY X

• In what industries does Company X compete? (e.g., for PepsiCo Inc)
• What is the logical hierarchy of Company X to get from the Top Parent to a product / service offering? (e.g., from PepsiCo to Lay’s Classic Potato Chips. This is not a legal view nor an org chart view, unless by accident they’re the same.)
• Overall, who are the Top Parent Competitors for Company X? (And put in descending order in terms of the number of industries where PepsiCo and its competitors compete head-to-head.)
• In what industries do Company X + Company Y both compete? (e.g., identify the specific industries where PepsiCo & Coca Cola Corp compete head-to-head)
• In what industries does Company X compete that Company Y doesn’t? (e.g., identify the specific industries where PepsiCo competes and Coca Cola does not)

FOR INDUSTRY X

• Who are the competitors? (e.g., for Chocolate Chip Cookies, and show competitors by Top Parent, by Brand, and by Product / Service Offering.
• What is the size of the industry and what are growth rates?
• How attractive is this industry?
• What are the Product varieties?
• Who are the Buyer types?
• What are the Buyer Purchase Criteria?
• Who are the end users?
• What are the vendor types?
• What are the substitutes?
• What are the complements?
• What trends are relevant to this industry?
• What uncertainties does this industry face?

Although we use approximately ten different (mostly government) ICSs in one capacity or another, we primarily (and uniquely) use the Industry Building Blocks ICS which defines industries at the granular (Michael Porter) five forces industry level where true head-to-head competition takes place. (The IBB ICS is approximately 23 times more granular than NAICS.)

Not at this time. However, we have recently provided sample test data to companies that want to use extracts of our data within their vendor products to offer a more holistic solution to their clients. To date, the sample test data comes in two varieties: RDF triples and CSV data format.

Also, for IndustryKG Strategic Partners, we have started developing related development aids, starting with the IndustryKG Conceptual Model (aka: a picture of the ontology)

Semantic Arts Inc.

From a technology development viewpoint, they:

• Created an ontology, that was an extension of gist, and added about 70 classes and about 25 properties beyond RDF, RDFS, OWL, SKOS, and gist.
• Converted the raw Excel data (from Industry Building Blocks Inc) into RDF triples conforming to the ontology.
• Tested that it was complete and correct with a suite of SPARQL tests and maintain the quality with a series of SHACL shapes.
• Built the IndustryKG™ Explorer web application you see directly on the graph database.

We provide some online support but typically we’ll respond to your inquiries within 24 business hours.

Getting started is easy. Simply use the IndustryKG™ Explorer Demo and request data. The system will then prompt you from there.

Yes, we do. You can see the video on LinkedIn. And if you have questions, ask Alan Michaels on LinkedIn as well.

It costs $99 for the IndustryKG™ Explorer web application annual access subscription plus most users (we expect > 98%) will also purchase tokens ($1 for 70 tokens, with a minimum $10 purchase) to access and license additional industry and company data based on your needs.

Depending upon if the user is looking to view the analysis of just one company (e.g., a list of the lines of business, a logical organization hierarchy, and an industry analysis for each line of business) or maybe the user is an M&A analyst and wants to view and compare a long list of companies as part of routine M&A analysis, the solution might cost from $1,000 to $100,000 or more.

In short, our goal is to be far, far cheaper (and better) than any management consulting company.

No. The $99 is a non-refundable risk you will need to take in order to try the real system. Choose wisely.

Yes, what a great question.
Zoom on tuesdays at 2pm (eastern time).

Some of the bugs we know of include:

• In those cases where we automatically log the user off for inactivity, a screen may appear that appears to let the user log back in by clicking either “Home” or “Log In”. Click the “Home” option as the other option does not work.

We use Stripe. You should be able to differentiate the Stripe user interface by the light lavender background and the dashed borders.

We do not store your credit card information, Stripe does.

The number of tokens to subscribe to an organization or industry is based on the amount of data in the system at that time. So, if there’s only a small amount of data, the annual data subscription will cost less than if the data was more complete. And, if a ton of data is made available after you made your subscription, there is no additional fee during the subscription time period. In short, you pay less as we work to add more (very current) data.

The key factor (among many) that most correlates with the number of tokens (the price) for organizational reports is the number of (IBB) industries the organization competes in.

For example, there are 6 free companies displayed in the demo. The number of industries (aka: the key factor) for each is presented below in parentheses:

• Byrne Dairy (35)
• Coca-Cola Corporation (56)
• Monster Beverage Corp (16)
• PepsiCo Inc (161)
• Turkey Hill Dairy (16)
• ZOA Energy LLC (2)

Let’s look at Byrne Dairy, a sample company competing in 35 industries (aka: lines of business) which is close to the average for the Global 5000.

Byrne Dairy data subscription pricing with exchange rate
$1 = 70 tokens

Organization data for Byrne Dairy:

• Lines of Business (9,315 tokens for $133)
• Logical Hierarchy (1,452 tokens for $21)
• Top Parent Competitors (3,357 tokens for $48)

Industry data for Byrne Dairy:

• 35 Byrne Dairy LOBs (76,120 tokens for $1,088)

The total cost for the 3 Byrne Dairy organization Reports + all 35 Industry Analyses is 90,243 tokens or $1,290.
(That is less than one day’s consulting fee for most management consulting companies.)

View one example of the 35 industries: Chocolate Milk Manufacturing.

NOTEs:

1. See the list of 35 industries that Byrne Dairy competes in (out of the > 24,000 industries that make up the economy).
2. Each industry uses the same industry template.
3. The amount of data in each industry varies (and, in general, is generally growing).
4. The amount of data for any subscription is measured in terms of the number of “triples” (aka: a simple statement expressed as a subject-predicate-object).
5. Some triples (such as data identifying direct competitors) are more important and are priced higher than other triples (such as data on industry complements).
6. Sample Pricing by Company:
   • Byrne Dairy
     with 35 LOBs at ~ $1,300
   • Coca-Cola Corporation
     with 56 LOBs at ~ $2,200
   • Monster Beverage Corp
     with 16 LOBs at ~ $700
   • PepsiCo Inc
     with 161 LOBs at ~ $6,000
   • Turkey Hill Dairy
     with 16 LOBs at ~ $700
   • ZOA Energy LLC
     with 2 LOBs at ~ $100

Note: the above sample pricing is what the company data would have cost if not given free.

YES, we have what we believe is a simple win-win arrangement to compensate you for helping us increase sales.

An IndustryKG™ affiliate earns a 20% commission on data subscriptions made in the first 12 months of each referred account.

All current users are now welcome to apply from within the IndustryKG™ Explorer web application. (See: Account Management / Account / Affiliate / Links to view your unique links.)

When used according to the IndustryKG™ Affiliate Marketing terms, your unique link will track the token usage for which a percentage of that transaction revenue will be awarded to you.

Affiliate links can be posted on websites, included in emails, included in LinkedIn posts, used with QR codes, and many other places. To ease the use of affiliate links, IndustryKG™ provides a “landing page” link. This link opens a page on www.industrykg.com which includes a disclosure along with your affiliate link. Recommended in LinkedIn posts or any other place you don’t want to supply a custom disclosure.

An account qualifies as being referred by you when the user clicks one of your affiliate links and signs up for a new IndustryKG™ Explorer account within 30 days after clicking the affiliate link.

IF you’re at the point where you and Industry Knowledge Graph LLC have agreed that you jointly want to move to the next step to test IndustryKG™ data from within your application and/or to test the workflow for incorporating IndustryKG™ data as part of your business consulting or related business, contact Alan Michaels on LinkedIn for an IndustryKG™ Test Package.

We will typically first explore if you want our .csv test data (think Excel) or our .ttl test data (think RDF knowledge graph)

The overall package will include answers to faqs related to testing our data.

Probably yes, as part of the IndustryKG™ Partner program. Let us know what you have in mind so we can work through it.

No. However, you may want to inquire about IndustryKG Partners that are already familiar with our industry data.

In working with clients, it is often helpful when they tell us their non-confidential business objectives related to their information needs, no matter how fuzzy because even though we’re not a business consulting company, we understand strategy very well and we can leverage our global model to help them quickly scope the industries and companies involved (without any obligation).

Typically, when a client asks us to focus on a market area, they are initially surprised at the high number of granular industries involved (only because our taxonomy is very granular).
In addition, we are strategy experts and happy to informally teach the subject (typically but not always using our data for company and industry examples).

In short, we like helping clients raise the level of strategic thinking (mostly because we just like to teach the subject and also because in the long run you just may add additional data subscriptions).