Upsales advanced industry classification system leverages AI to provide you with actionable insights into how your industry is evolving. It goes beyond traditional, broad classifications to pinpoint exactly where your company stands within the market.

For example, rather than the company Upsales simply being labelled under generic categories like “IT Services”, Upsales Company Data Hub supplies you with more detailed industry codes such as “SaaS CRM Software”, giving Upsales the possibility to compare competitors and similar companies in a much deeper way.

Comparing your customers vs their industry: Financial performance benchmarking

Upsales enables you to compare your customers' financial performance with others in the same industry. This helps you see if your customers are growing at the same pace as their industry or if they’re ahead or falling behind competitors. On an aggregated scale this helps you analyse the financial health of your customers and their industry forecasts.

How is the performance calculated?

To compare companies across all industries and countries, Upsales uses a universal metric; The rule of 40. Although it might be best suited for the SaaS industry, it's a way to compare all companies by the same standard:

The Rule of 40 (E40) is a valuable KPI for comparing companies because it provides a balanced view of two crucial business metrics:

• It combines growth (Net Sales Growth %) with profitability (Profit Margin %)

This combination makes it an effective metric for several reasons:

• It creates a balanced view between growth and profitability, preventing companies from overemphasizing one at the expense of the other
• It allows for meaningful comparisons between companies of different sizes and stages
• It helps identify companies that can sustainably scale while maintaining healthy profit margins
• It's particularly useful for evaluating software and technology companies where there's often a trade-off between growth and profitability.

Strategic industry analysis

While Upsales enables you to benchmark your customers against their industry, you can also dive deep into specific industries, their key figures, trends, news and industry drivers.

What is an industry driver? 

Industry drivers are key factors that shape and influence how an industry develops, grows, or declines. These can include technological advancements, changes in raw material costs (e.g., lithium prices impacting EV manufacturers), regulatory shifts, and macroeconomic trends. Understanding these drivers helps you stay ahead by identifying new opportunities, mitigating risks, and benchmarking your business against competitors.

Upsales tracks the right drivers for each industry and notifies you of important shifts so that you can make better strategic decisions and respond faster to market changes.

Customer market share analysis

By grouping companies in the same industry category, Upsales can calculate and analyze their combined revenue. This lets you understand your customers’ market share within the industry and also find potential leads in the same industry.

Find similar customers

The detailed industry classification allows Upsales to identify potential customers on a deep level by analysing the hundreds of data points extracted from company information. If you have several customers in the same industry, Upsales can suggest similar prospects to target.

Frequently asked questions & known limitations