Navigating IBISWorld

Learn how to effectively search for specific industry data and download detailed market reports within the IBISWorld platform. This guide helps you navigate through international industry classifications, competitive analysis, and performance metrics to support your research.

Tom Vickers
24 steps
5 minutes

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How to use IBISWorld's basic search

IBISWorld is a market and industry database, similar to Marketline or Passport. Compared to those databases, it covers a different selection of sectors. IBISWorld is particularly good for sectors not focused around products, such as service industries, healthcare, and business to business sales (B2B).

You can always start with the search bar. It's best to try a combination of a sector name and a country you're interested in. (Please note: Brookes does not have access to Atlas AI search).

This is the result for the search "computer gaming uk". IBISWorld now includes an AI Overview at the start of the results. This can be fine start, but you will want to read the sources used, which are linked at the end of the summary. As the warning states: "Always verify critical business decisions".

IBISWorld will provide you with what it thinks are the most relevant results first, highlighting wher your search terms appear in the reports.

Finding industry data using the "Industries" tab

Another way to find what you're looking for is through the "Industries" tab.

This will open an option to select from "Regions and Countries" and then "by Sector". The default country is the UK, but other options are available in the left sidebar (as shown). Clicking on a different country will change the sectors available.

Clicking on a sector will open a list of the options available in that group. It is also possible to sleect "all sectors".

This is what that list of options looks like for the sector "Arts, Entertainment & Recreation in the UK". 8 reports are listed as available, each for a different subsector. Each of these reports can be opened by clicking in the subsector name.

How to navigate industry reports

Here's an example report for "Libraries, Museums & Cultural Activities in the UK" You can see the date when this report was published under the title.

All IBISWorld reports have the same chapters, which are made up of a combination of data visualisation and text analysis.

For exmaple, "Competitive Forces" will provide a five forces style analysis of the current sector climate.

Each chapter also has the same subsections as all other reports. "Barriers to Entry" will be helpful if you are modeling the creation of a new company, or the expansion of an existing company into a new sector or region.

IBISWorld reports are not company reports, but they do contain information on the biggest companies in any given sector.

There is a relatively detailed summary of key details for these companies, including items such as market share, number of employees, etc. You can select which you want to read about from this drop-down list.

IBISWorld reports also have useful industry data available under "Key Statistics"

To download this data, or any part of the report, click this "Downloads" option in the top right corner.

This will give you a selection of download options to choose from.

How to find other kinds of data on IBISWorld

As well as industry reports, IBISWorld has a few other options it's worth knowing about. Click "Products" to view these.

The "Supplementary Products" group include "Business Environment Profiles", which lay out the wider economic and social context in a specific region, and also various ESG risk reports. The "Risk" group includes various risk ratings reports that access the volatility of specific sectors in specific regions.

Different regions offer different reports. For example, products of the United States also includes Price Index Profiles as well as economic profiles for each state, but has no ESG reports.

If I click through to "Business Environment Profiles", I can then select from these various drop-down menus.

For example, I might open up "Population, Consumer & Environment" to then click on the consumer spending report listed there.

I can then view the current estimated value of this metric and the forecast future value IBISWorld thinks is likely in the future.

Further Help

If you need more help using IBISWorld, please email us at **library@brookes.ac.uk**, or check out our[Get help and support page](https://www.brookes.ac.uk/library/how-to/get-help)for more options