Many organizations, businesses, and analysts utilize a market assessment tool to understand the industry’s competitive dynamics. This marketing assessment tool is called industry analysis or industry reports. So, the industry analysis consists of an overview of the industry or market in a particular geographic area.
With the help of industry analysis, you will also get to know the key trends, definitions, key economic indicators, and other topics typically written by analysts or experts in research. Additionally, you will learn about industry data such as size, value, sales, and ratios.
But is industry analysis important? Yes, industry analysis is vital because it helps organizations or businesses understand future trends and gain knowledge to keep the business growing in the right direction. You can assess the market and financial positions of a particular company of the same industry and understand its developments.
It also helps in discovering any threats or opportunities of the company. Before you understand how to find industry reports, look into how an analyst or expert in research conducts the industry analysis with a structured report.
1. Understanding the difference between industry and sector and identifying the right industry: Firstly, it is crucial to identify the appropriate industry and understand the difference between industry and sector at the same time. Although the terms’ industry’ and ‘sector’ are replaceable, they are two different terms. You will be able to understand the difference with the help of some examples.
So, for instance, an FMCG (Fast-Moving Consumer Goods) company and a retail store belong to the same sector but different industries. Likewise, in the healthcare sector, you will find pharmaceutical companies and hospitals or the diagnostic industry. Although both the above belong to the same sector, they belong to different industries and function with contrasting metrics and dynamics.
2. Understanding the forces of demand and supply: To understand the industry further, an analyst must be well-informed about the total market demand and the supply of a specific product or service. It is essential to understand the forces of demand and supply because it helps control the market and study the industry’s trends. If you are an analyst, you must learn to do market sizing without any errors since it can result in errors in strategic planning and the identification of trends.
3. Identifying the industry life cycle: There are four stages of the industry life cycle, namely introduction, growth, maturity, and decline. As an analyst, you must identify the stage of your particular industry. With each stage, you get to evaluate the risk and reward metrics of the industry. Moreover, you get to understand if a specific industry is thriving at each stage. Well, the telecom companies and the e-commerce companies will be at different stages.
4. Knowing relevant industry metrics: It is important to have knowledge or thoroughly understand the relevant industry metrics and their performance. For instance, in real estate companies, analysts study metrics like sales velocity, inventory overhang, sales efficiency, sold and unsold units, and so forth whereas telecom companies utilize the metrics and determine their relation with other companies of the same industry. Moreover, the companies forecast certain trends based on those metrics.
5. Reading available reports: If you are an analyst, you must thoroughly evaluate the available reports. It will help you in getting ideas for the development of a particular industry. Since market trends keep on changing over time, it is not appropriate to stick to an existing report; instead, it is better to get the latest details of the industry in the reports.
Finding industry reports:
Many websites give you information regarding industry reports. You will be able to get details such as the report title, published year, and the price. Plus, you can also request a sample. If you pay for a particular report, you can get all the details about a specific industry. Furthermore, you can opt for an analysis of any industry from any year.