Industry Knowledge Graph™ FAQs

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.

It helps businesses make much more informed decisions by offering the most strategically relevant industry and company information. (In great part, the industry data provided leverages the intellectual frameworks described by Michael E. Porter in his landmark book “Competitive Advantage” (1985).

It costs $99 for the IndustryKG Explorer Web Application annual subscription. In addition, most users (we expect > 98%) will 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 org 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.

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.

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

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

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

We’re in the process of developing a simple win-win arrangement to compensate you for helping us increase sales. 
An IKG Affiliate earns commission for data subscriptions made in the first 12 months of each referred account.

Yes, as part of the IndustryKG Partner program.

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); and [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].

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?

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

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.

 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.

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 UI you see directly on the graph database

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 sample 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 (156);
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

Org Data for Byrne:
. 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: 
. 35 Byrne Dairy LOBs
. . .76,120 tokens for $1,088

The total cost for the 3 Byrne Dairy Org 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 156 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.