Useful industry information for academic business studies that is both free and online is difficult to find. Most useful online industry information must be paid for in some way because of the time, effort, and hierarchical industry classification system required to collect and group company data into industry information.
A Note on Industry Classification Systems
The NEIU Libraries subscribe to electronic resources that contain the kind of industry information needed for academic business studies. These resources use two different industry classification systems:
- NAICS (North American Industry Classification System)
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, NAICS, "is the standard used by Federal statistical agencies in classifying business establishments for the purpose of collecting, analyzing, and publishing statistical data related to the U.S. business economy."
NAICS uses a six-digit coding system to classify industries hierarchically by their operations.. The first two digits represent the economic sector; the first five digits represent the industry. There are 20 sectors and 1029 industries in the 2022 NAICS revision.
NAICS is revised every 5 years. Please be aware that IBISWorld currently uses the 2017 revision, not the 2022 revision.
- GICS (Global Industrial Classification System)
GICS uses an eight-digit coding system to classify operations hierarchically. The first two digits represent the economic sector; the first six digits represent the industry. There are 11 sectors, 74 industries, and 163 sub-industries in GICS.
The table below shows how the two coding systems classify a real-world company:
Other nations use ISIC: the International Standard Industrial Classification of All Economic Activities. NAICS is designed to be compatible with ISIC. The United Nations creates and maintains ISIC codes; further information may be found here.
The video below shows how to search for NAICS Codes and how to find free government data and data offered through NEIU Libraries.
