Industrial design services — NAICS 54142 industry report

01

Size and shape

How many businesses there are and how small they are. Fragmentation is the first thing an entrant — or anyone selling software into this industry — needs to know, and it is one of the few things that is actually measured.

Canadian establishments by number of employeesA

1–436579%

5–95913%

10–19255%

20–4992%

50–9910%

100–19910%

200–4990—

500+0—

Of 460 Canadian establishments with employees, 92% have fewer than ten — an industry of very small operators.

Where they areA

Ontario20043%

Quebec11224%

Alberta8418%

British Columbia5211%

Largest four provinces by establishment count. Establishments with employees only — sole operators with no payroll are not in this table, so in trades and personal services the true number of businesses is higher.

How many new establishments are still tradingA

Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services, US · opened 2020

83.3%

1 year

64%

3 years

50.8%

5 years

34.3%

10 years

opened 2015

Measured, not forecast: the share of US establishments opening in one year that were still active later. It counts good operators and bad ones together, which is exactly why it is the honest answer to “what are the odds”. It is for the whole sector rather than this market, and the ten-year figure comes from an older cohort because no younger one has reached ten years.

02

How businesses here compete

The structural profile of subsector 541, which every industry beneath it inherits. This is analyst judgment from how the subsector is organised — not research into this industry, and not a measurement.

regional competitionlow capitalUNVERIFIEDinherited from 541 Professional, scientific and technical services

Professional licensing is the barrier and the principal's time is the ceiling. Firms are built from a book of clients, and an aging partner group makes acquisition and succession the common entry.

Who sets the price: The firm, by reputation, against hourly-rate comparison.
The software it runs on: Practice management, time and billing, and a specialist tool per profession — the densest vertical-software territory in the economy.

03

Market screens and studies

Market-entry records filed along this branch of the hierarchy. A record at or beneath this code is about this industry; one above it is about something wider that contains it.

Screened one level up. Nothing is filed at this exact code; the screen for 5414 Specialized design services covers it.

Vertical softwareScreenedfiled at 5414

Creative Proofing & Digital Asset ManagementOne thing must be true

binding constraint: incumbent vulnerability

Incumbent Adobe (Workfront, Frame.io, Experience Manager Assets)

Adobe owns both the file format and the buyer's existing invoice, and has folded review, approval and asset management into the suite the creative team already pays for. Selling a standalone proofing tool means asking a buyer to pay twice for something bundled, which is the weakest position in this batch. Sourced update: the bundle is $17.65B of Digital Media revenue growing 11%. A standalone proofing tool is asking a buyer to pay a second time for a feature inside that.

NAICS 54143 vendors named2 sourced figuresOpen →

04

Software serving this industry

The vertical software markets filed along the same branch — who sells to these businesses and who they would have to displace — and then the generic categories every business buys whatever it does.

Sold across the wider branch

Vertical softwareScreenedfiled at 5414 Specialized design services

Creative Proofing & Digital Asset ManagementOne thing must be true

binding constraint: incumbent vulnerability

Incumbent Adobe (Workfront, Frame.io, Experience Manager Assets)

Adobe owns both the file format and the buyer's existing invoice, and has folded review, approval and asset management into the suite the creative team already pays for. Selling a standalone proofing tool means asking a buyer to pay twice for something bundled, which is the weakest position in this batch. Sourced update: the bundle is $17.65B of Digital Media revenue growing 11%. A standalone proofing tool is asking a buyer to pay a second time for a feature inside that.

NAICS 54143 vendors named2 sourced figuresOpen →

And what every business buys · 25 generic categories

Sold to every industry rather than this one, so they are filed against the software industry's own code. The same few vendors recur across most of them.

05

Who works here

The occupations employed in Professional, scientific and technical services, most concentrated in it first. The share is measured against the whole sector, not this industry — the published cross-tabulation stops there.

Concentrated in this sectorA

Judges, lawyers and Quebec notaries One industry 71.1%

Computer, software and Web designers and developers Mostly one sector 55.4%

Architects, urban planners and land surveyors Mostly one sector 54.7%

Technical occupations in architecture, drafting, surveying, geomatics and meteorology Mostly one sector 51.2%

Photographers and support occupations in arts and culture Mostly one sector 50.3%

Graphic and interior designers Mostly one sector 48.9%

Civil and mechanical engineers Mostly one sector 45.2%

Electrical, electronics and computer engineers Mostly one sector 40.3%

Managers in engineering, architecture, science and information systems Mostly one sector 40.2%

Natural resources engineers Mostly one sector 39.2%

These jobs are mostly done here. An operator in this industry is competing for them against others in the same industry, not against the whole economy.

And the jobs every business has

Technical occupations in computer and information systems Across the economy 29.6%

Accounting, insurance and related business administrative occupations Across the economy 24.9%

Technical inspectors and regulatory officers Across the economy 23.1%

Office administrative assistants - general, legal and medical Across the economy 16.8%

Financial, insurance and related administrative support workers Across the economy 16.6%

Legislative and senior managers Across the economy 16.2%

Technical occupations in electronics and electrical engineering Across the economy 11.8%

Survey, statistical and data entry occupations Across the economy 11.5%

Administrative services managers Across the economy 10.7%

Administrative, property and payroll officers Across the economy 9%

Found across at least fourteen of the twenty sectors. But note the shape of this industry: 92% of establishments have fewer than ten employees, and at that size most of these roles are one person wearing several hats, or bought in from outside.

All 162 occupations →

06

Inside this industry

1 row sits directly beneath 54142. Each has a base report of its own.

Code	Industry	Establishments · CA	What is known
541420	Industrial design services	460	screened at 5414

Alongside it, under 5414 Specialized design services

Code	Industry	Establishments · CA	What is known
54141	Interior design services	2,274	screened at 5414
54143	Graphic design services	1,924	screened at 5414
54149	Other specialized design services	469	screened at 5414