NAICS 55Sector · 2-digit2 market records

Management of companies and enterprises

SoftwareBoard & Entity Governance Software 551

This sector comprises (1), comprises legal entities engaged only in holding the securities of subsidiaries and affiliates for the purpose of owning a controlling interest or influencing the management decisions of these businesses, or (2), establishments primarily engaged in administering, overseeing, and managing other establishments of the company or enterprise and which may also hold the securities of their subsidiaries and affiliates. — Statistics Canada, NAICS 2022A

Establishments · CanadaA: 6,514
Under 10 employeesA: 49%
Establishments · USA: 51,218
Employment · USA: 3,661,977
Payroll · USA: $464.5B

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

1–42,29335%

5–987713%

10–1981112%

20–4998715%

50–995639%

100–1994116%

200–4993015%

500+2714%

Of 6,514 Canadian establishments with employees, 49% have fewer than ten — an industry where large establishments carry real weight.

Where they areA

Ontario2,44538%

Quebec1,19018%

British Columbia1,14518%

Alberta88714%

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

Management of Companies and Enterprises, US · opened 2020

84.5%

1 year

66.2%

3 years

52.1%

5 years

35.8%

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.

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.

Operating businessScreenedfiled at 5511

Holding Companies & Head OfficesStructure decides

binding constraint: market size

This is the one sector in the classification that describes where a company keeps its management, not what it sells. An establishment lands in 5511 when a statistical agency finds a head office or a holding entity that is separate from the operating sites it controls. It has no customers: its 'revenue' is dividends and internal charges from its own subsidiaries, and nobody can win that business because nobody is offered it. The screen's finding is that there is nothing here to enter, and the cut is market size in the literal sense — the external market is zero. What the numbers do show is a buyer of some consequence. The United States counts 51,218 such establishments employing 3.66 million people on a payroll of $464.5 billion — about $127,000 a head [A]. Canada counts 6,514, and the size bands are unlike any small-business industry: 271 with 500 or more employees and another 301 with 200 to 499, beside 2,293 one-to-four-person holding entities that are legal wrappers with a payroll. Those large head offices buy legal, audit, consulting, treasury, real estate and enterprise software, and each of those is screened under its own code. One caution for anyone who reads 'holding company' as a strategy: acquiring and holding operating businesses is a way of financing entry into their industries, and should be screened there.

NAICS 55113 vendors named7 sourced figuresOpen →

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.

Vertical softwareScreenedfiled at 551

Board & Entity Governance SoftwareOne thing must be true

binding constraint: incumbent vulnerability

Incumbent Diligent

The buyer is a corporate secretary putting board material and cap-table records into a third party's system, which makes trust the product and a new name the disqualifier. Diligent has consolidated the category; the interesting challenger, Athennian, is Canadian and venture-funded and worth watching as a comparable rather than as a gap. Nothing is disclosed here. Every vendor named on this record is private, or sits inside a parent that does not break the line out, so no revenue floor can be built and the market size is genuinely unknown rather than estimated.

NAICS 5514 vendors namedOpen →

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.

Companies in this industry · 7

Every company this research names that is filed here or beneath — the operators, and the vendors that sell to them — largest disclosed revenue first. The rank is within the company’s own six-digit industry.

Company	Filed under	Revenue	Rank
BrookfieldPrivate	Management of companies and enterprises5511	$75.1B	1/2
AthennianPrivate	Management of companies and enterprises551	—	1/5
Canada's other large head-office groupsPrivate	Management of companies and enterprises5511	—	2/2
Computershare GEMSPrivate	Management of companies and enterprises551	—	2/5
CSCPrivate	Management of companies and enterprises551	—	3/5
DiligentPrivate	Management of companies and enterprises551	—	4/5
Nasdaq BoardvantagePrivate	Management of companies and enterprises551	—	5/5

Who works here

The occupations employed in Management of companies and enterprises, 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

Managers in natural resources production and fishing Mostly one sector 1.7%

Managers in engineering, architecture, science and information systems Mostly one sector 1.1%

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

Legislative and senior managers Across the economy 1.6%

Administrative services managers Across the economy 1.3%

Found across at least fourteen of the twenty sectors. In a small establishment several of these are usually one person, or an outside provider.

All 162 occupations →

Inside this industry

1 row sits directly beneath 55, and 5 in all once every level is counted. Each has a base report of its own.

Code	Industry	Establishments · CA	What is known
551	Management of companies and enterprises	6,514	Board & Entity Governance Software Holding Companies & Head Offices