Descriptions and Classifiers

Contents

How does Beauhurst's sector matrix work?

The top-level sectors in our matrix are the following:

  • Agriculture, forestry and fishing
  • Energy
  • Leisure and entertainment
  • Retail
  • Technology/IP-based businesses
  • Telecommunications service
  • Tradespeople
  • Transportation operators
  • Built environment and infrastructure
  • Business and professional services
  • Craft industries
  • Industrials
  • Media
  • Personal services
  • Supply chain
  • Other

We tag companies with as many sectors as appropriate, but do not order or prioritise sectors attached to a company.

We know SIC codes are used by Companies House, but we do not find them the most useful tool for analysing sectors. We explain elsewhere why. That is why we developed our own sector taxonomy that, we believe, makes sense to companies and funders.

How does Beauhurst's industry and buzzword matrix work?

We tag industries and buzzwords over all UK companies using a combination of manual and automated processes.

Industries define the space or field a company operates in and buzzwords are additional classifications not captured by standard industry tags, for example FinTech, Internet of Things, and Quantum.

We have created our own proprietary industry and buzzword matrix. The top-level groups in our matrix are the following:

  • Creative, media and publishing
  • Education
  • Environment, agriculture and waste
  • Financial services
  • Healthcare and wellbeing
  • Information technology, telecommunications and data
  • Life sciences and medical technology
  • Lifestyle and entertainment
  • Professional services
  • Property, infrastructure and construction
  • Safety and security
  • Software
  • Supply chain, manufacturing and commerce models
  • Travel and transportation

What is the difference between industries and sectors?

Industries are our replacement to sectors. Sectors will exist alongside industries for a brief period of time, but will be deprecated in the future.

Industries and sectors both allow users to understand and search over the field a company operates in, however our industries are much more descriptive and up-to-date with the modern day economy.

Sectors are tagged to a company based on its specific activities, whereas industries can be tagged if the category is in any way relevant to the company, providing a clearer understanding of the overall space or ecosystem in which a company operates.

We are also able to apply industries across all UK companies, whereas our current sectors can only be tagged to tracked companies, giving us a much larger coverage with industries.

What are target markets?

A company's target markets are the audiences a company seeks to engage with. We have divided target markets into the following:

  • Consumers
  • Businesses
  • Public sector
  • Third sector

'Consumers' refers to individuals who are engaging with a company on a personal basis, not in the capacity of employees or directors of a company or another entity.

'Businesses' refers to both:

  • Incorporated businesses (such as limited companies) and unincorporated businesses (such as sole traders)
  • For-profit entities and social enterprises (entities that have profit as an objective plus at least one other objective, such as caring for the environment).

'Public sector' refers to local, central and devolved governments.

'Third sector' refers to charities and other not-for-profit non-governmental organisations, such as think tanks.

Beauhurst data analysts assess each company individually and use a combination of publicly-available information and their own judgment. In order for us to say a certain audience is a target market for a company, we must be convinced that:

  • The company directly engages with that audience (the company has spent marketing budget on this audience or it would make sense for it do so) AND
  • Engaging with that audience is central, not peripheral, to its business model.

It is often the case a company will focus on a certain target market, but also mentions it seeks to engage with others. For example, many gyms offer 'corporate packages' but this is not a good enough reason to classify them as having 'Businesses' as a target market. If their brand and marketing efforts clearly focus on consumers, then this is their true target market.

There is no lower or upper limit to the number of target markets we will classify a company with. We classify companies with as many target markets as appropriate. If there is lack of clarity about a company's target markets (because it is unclear what the company actually does or because it is a very early-stage company) no target market will be tagged.