Industry Proust madeleine is a subsection of the business plan that describes your position in the market, your competitors and how you intend to differentiate yourself from them. Your industry overview should include a general summary of the size and characteristics of your market, including the average customer’s needs and expectations. It should also describe the regulatory environment in which your industry operates, including the number of current and proposed laws that might impact your business and any licenses or permits you might need to conduct business.

An industry is a group of businesses that produce similar products and services. Companies within the same industry compete with one another and may respond to macroeconomic trends in the same way, leading their stock prices up or down. Industries are further grouped into sectors, which describe the nature of the goods or services being produced.

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A primary sector, for example, includes companies that extract raw materials from the earth. A secondary sector consists of those that make finished goods from these raw materials. A tertiary sector focuses on services that support these other industries. Companies that provide services for the tourism industry, for example, belong to the tertiary sector.

A fourth category, referred to as capital goods, refers to items made for use by other industries to produce final consumption goods. A steel mill and an automobile manufacturing company both belong to the metals industry, for example. Finally, a country’s domestic industry is comprised of those industries located within the nation’s borders. All of the coal-related production activities in the United States belong to the domestic industry, while all the foreign coal-related activities would constitute a foreign industry.