A 23% compounded average annual rate of return.  Not too bad.

During his career Shelby advised Thomas Dewey on economic matters when he ran for president in 1940 and 1944 and served as Governor Dewey’s First Deputy Superintendent of Insurance from 1944 to 1947 in New York. Later, he served as US ambassador to Switzerland under Presidents Nixon and Ford (1969 – 1975).

A philanthropist, he was head of the Shelby Cullom Davis foundation which disperses funds to higher education and to research on public policy and economics. Princeton, his alma mater, was one of the beneficiaries of his grants. He also served as chairman of the Heritage Foundation.

Shelby got around.

But what the heck does this have to do with Fintech?

In a previous post we found that the Tucson, AZ metro area made our top 15 list of top addressable Fintech Securities & Investments markets on a per employee basis in 2015 (ranked 14^th).

Can a contributing reason for this can be tied directly back to Shelby Cullom Davis?

Securities & investments sector in Tucson, AZ

Tucson, AZ probably does not first come to mind when thinking about hot spots of financial activity. So, what is going on in Tucson?

As we have done in previous posts, let’s start with a high-level view of Tucson’s Securities & Investments sector. As shown below, 62% of the 2015 addressable Fintech market is due to portfolio management. Another 27% is due to securities brokerage. This is generally consistent with the West regional average of 28% for securities brokerage we saw in an earlier post. But it reflects a much higher concentration of potential Fintech spend in the portfolio management sub-sector (62 vs 48%).

Again, our analysis uses ZIP Pointe Market Sizer.  Market Sizer is our Tableau-based market sizing tool based on ZIP Code-level Census data on over 7 million private sector business locations.

In terms of business location size by sub-sector, nearly 80% of the locations are small (1 – 4 payroll employees). This is a recurring theme. The sub-sector is dominated by small locations though these are not necessarily all stand-alone companies (i.e. they could be formal branch locations).

There are only 29 locations with 10 or more payroll employees. A bit over 40% of the locations are involved with securities brokerage, another 26% are portfolio management and another 18% are investment advice (see below).

With respect to “hot spots” of potential Fintech spend per employee, it is clearly the portfolio management sub-sector that stands out, with potential spend ranging from $5,337 to $7,682 per payroll employee. The top hot spot consists of 3 locations with 50 to 99 employees.

Note: The US Census source used by Market Sizer tracks only payroll employees. Independent contractors are not reflected in these numbers. Hence, the actual employment level can be higher, possibly much higher, in sectors that make extensive use of contract labor.

ZIP Code level view

As we have done in prior posts, another way to drill into the addressable Fintech market in Tucson is by ZIP code. The following map shows the ZIP codes in the metro area color coded for addressable market size per employee. At the ZIP Code level, addressable Fintech market size ranges from $1k to $6k per payroll employee.

But there is a distinct hot spot in ZIP Code 85706 (circled in red) at $6k per employee. According to Wealthminder.com, the largest Tucson financial advisory firm (in terms of assets under management) is located in this ZIP Code:  Davis Selected Advisors.

Other top firms in the Tucson metro area (indicated by red arrows) are Tci Wealth Advisors in ZIP Code 85718; Sonora Investment Management in Zip Code 85719; Strategic Equity Management in Zip Code 85715; and Sterling Investment Management in Zip Code 85718.

Which ZIP codes account for the bulk of potential Fintech spend?

We have already discussed two of the top 3: 85706 at 16% and 85718 at 20%. But these are surpassed by ZIP Code 85712 (indicated by the green arrow) which accounts for 27%. These three ZIP Codes together account for 63% of Tucson’s potential Fintech spend in the Securities & Investments sub-sector.

Another way to drill into the addressable Fintech market is on a per business location basis.  Dividing potential spend by the number of locations is another way to normalize the data. This map (shown below) looks quite a bit different and one ZIP Code stands out above all the rest: 85706. Although the ZIP code overall accounts for 16% of total potential Fintech spend, on a per location basis, it ranks at the top with $230k in potential spend per site.

ZIP Code 85706

Turns out at there are only 3 locations in ZIP Code 85706.  At least one of these (the larger one) is associated with, yep, Davis Selected Advisors. And it may be that the other sites are also associated with Davis as we could not find any other Securities & Investments firms (with at least 10 employees) in this ZIP Code (If anyone knows, please let us know!)

Davis Selected Advisors

So, the Davis name is a major player in the Tucson metro Securities & Investments sector. Any relation to Shelby Cullom Davis perhaps?

Davis Selected Advisers was started in 1969 in New York by Shelby Davis…not Shelby Cullom Davis but his son Shelby Moore Cullom Davis. Following his father’s footsteps, Shelby M.C. Davis graduated from Princeton and rose through the ranks of the New York financial industry – specifically at the Bank of New York.

In the late 1970s the non-portfolio operations of Davis Selected were moved to Sante Fe, N.M. In 1997, a service center was opened in Tucson and personnel were hired locally and moved from Santa Fe. By 2000, Tucson had became Davis Selected’s global headquarters, specifically in ZIP Code 85706 where the company operates out of its own commercial property.

Today, Davis Selected Advisers is led by Shelby’s son, Chris Shelby, grandson of Shelby Cullom Davis.  “Davis Selected controls the nine-fund Davis group, the Selected group of funds, which is a no-load, four-fund group, private accounts of no less than $5 million, and other managed money programs.” (Inside Tucson Business).  Currently, Davis Selected has about $30b in assets under management.

So, there you have it…from Switzerland to the Sonoran Desert! 

Ok, maybe New York to Arizona…

The post Top 15 Metros – From Switzerland to the Sonoran Desert – Fintech Securities & Investments appeared first on KDD Analytics.

And so will tax incentives.

The Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill combined statistical area (CSA), with over 2 million people, is the second largest metro area in North Carolina following Charlotte to the south. It is home to 3 major universities: Duke, University of North Carolina (UNC) and North Carolina State. Duke and UNC form two of the vertices of the “Research Triangle,” an area known for a high concentration of corporate operations and research companies and startups, especially in life sciences. The third vertex is formed by North Carolina State University in Raleigh.

The Raleigh metro area was number two on the 2015 Forbes list of the best place for businesses and careers. Durham ranked number 20 while Charlotte was 14th. Companies located in the Raleigh-Durham area include heavy hitters like IBM, GlaxoSmithKline, Cisco, SAS Institute and Lenovo.

As one of the largest research parks in the world, Research Triangle Park (RTP), sits mostly within the Durham-Chapel Hill metro area. RTP employs nearly 50,000 “high-tech” workers and is home to over 250 companies including Credit Suisse, Dell, EMC and Fidelity Investments. None of these are tobacco companies.

North Carolina has been very aggressive in wooing companies to locate in the state.  Lucrative incentives have been offered including outright grants, rebates of employee withholding taxes and sales tax refunds. Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill has directly benefited from these incentive programs as has the Charlotte-Concord-Gastonia metro area.

So, what does this have to do with Fintech?

Two million people and a healthy economy means there’s a lot of money that needs good advice. And a healthy program incentivizing companies to locate in the state doesn’t hurt. This combination has pushed the Durham-Chapel Hill Metro to #6 in our ranking of the Top 15 List of Fintech Securities & Investments Markets on a per employee basis in 2015.

Securities & Investments sector in Durham-Chapel Hill

What does the Securities & Investments sector look like in Durham-Chapel Hill, NC? To start, as shown below, over 50% of the 2015 addressable Fintech market is due to securities brokerage. Another 27% is due to portfolio management. This is generally consistent with the South Atlantic regional average of 45% and 28% that we saw in an earlier post.

Again, our analysis uses ZIP Pointe Market Sizer. Market Sizer is our Tableau-based market sizing tool based on ZIP Code-level Census data on over 7 million private sector business locations.

In terms of business location size by sub-sector, over 70% of the locations are small (1 to 4 payroll employees). There are only 7 locations with 100 or more employees. A bit over 40% of these locations are involved with securities brokerage, another 28% are portfolio management and 19% are investment advice (see below). With respect to “hot spots” of potential Fintech spend per employee, several business locations classified as Miscellaneous Intermediation (e.g. venture capital) have the highest Fintech spend per employee of around $12,000. In the chart below we have circled the largest locations.

Another way to drill into this market is by ZIP code. The following map shows the ZIP codes in the metro area color coded for addressable market size per employee. At the ZIP Code level, addressable Fintech market size ranges from $1k to $6k per employee.

According to Wealthminder.com, the largest financial advisory firms (in terms of assets under management) are located in ZIP Codes 22701 (Amundi Smith Breeden and Verity Asset Management), 27713 (Piedmont Investment Advisors), 27703 (Gordon Asset Management) and 27707 (NCM Capital Management Group).

 

ZIP Code 27709

So, on a per business location basis as well as a total basis, there is a very heavy concentration of potential Fintech spend in ZIP Code 27709. Focusing on the distribution of sites in this ZIP Code we see that the largest locations in the metro area are also in this ZIP Code (see the chart above with the red circle). Since this ZIP Code partially covers Research Triangle Park (RTP), these large locations are likely Credit Suisse and Fidelity Investments (see the RTP company directory).

Note: The US Census source used by Market Sizer tracks only payroll employees. Independent contractors are not reflected in these numbers. Hence, the actual employment level can be higher, possibly much higher, in sectors that make extensive use of contract labor.

Fidelity Investments and JIDGs

Fidelity is one of the larger employers in the Durham-Chapel Hill metro area. Fidelity first began to operate in North Carolina in 2002 “when it acquired an employee benefits business. Four years later, the firm designated North Carolina as a regional technology center, added a data center and a customer contact center and based Fidelity Charitable in the Triangle.” wral.com 

Fidelity further expanded its presence starting in 2006 and in 2015 announced plans to add an additional 600 jobs. Projections are for 4,200 jobs by 2018, mostly at the Research Triangle Park campus.

Fidelity, as well as other business, was likely incentivized to locate and expand in North Carolina by Job Investment Development Grants or JIDGs. These state grants are a

“performance-based, discretionary incentive program that provides cash grants directly to new and expanding companies to help offset the cost of locating or expanding a facility in the state. The amount of the grant is based on a percentage of the personal income tax withholdings associated with the new jobs.” Economic Development Partnership of North Carolina.

Companies can use JIDG funds for any purpose.

As these grants are performance-based, companies receive the full incentive only after meeting certain benchmarks.  These requirements can be in the form of a certain number of jobs created and retained, generation of a targeted $ amount of gross state product and/or the generation of a certain positive net revenue amount over the life of the grant.

Recently, North Carolina has “sweetened the pot” of these incentives, with an eye towards “transformative projects”, those that invest at least $4 billion and create 5,000+ jobs (ahem…listening Amazon?).

All states have some type of incentive program to entice businesses to locate and expand in their states. North Carolina appears to be one of the more aggressive ones. And this definitely was a contributing factor to why the Durham-Chapel Hill, NC metro area is #6 on our list.  #2 Omaha powered its way there more organically it seems.

All regions are different.  And Fintech companies looking to successfully disrupt these segments will need to be able to take these differences into account.

The post Top 15 Metros – Fidelity Durham – Fintech Securities & Investments appeared first on KDD Analytics.

We’ll come back to Springfield.  But first, let’s slice that $18.8b into some smaller pieces.  Nearly 84% of this market is in the banking sector; the other 16% is in the securities & investments sector.  In absolute terms, the New York metro area (unsurprisingly) leads the list at $1,090m.  Other key financial centers that make the top 15 are Boston ($191m), Chicago ($183m), Los Angeles ($172m) and San Francisco ($171m).

Normalizing market data

Focusing on total market size misses the hot spots or concentrations of “spend potential” for the segment you’re after.  And while the best targets may not even reside in the list of large markets, you can bet a lot of your competitors haven’t figured that out.

A first step in prospect targeting is to “normalize” your data.  The New York market is #1 because of the substantial number of financial companies based in the metro area.  But on a per employee basis, there are other metro areas that rank higher than New York.  To delve into a per employee analysis, we again use ZIP Pointe Market Sizer.  Market Sizer is our Tableau-based market sizing tool using ZIP Code-level Census data on over 7 million private sector business locations.

Fintech market size per employee

We limited our analysis to the 80% of metro areas with 250 or more business locations in the banking and securities & investments sectors.  This helps reduce the “noise” in our analysis and minimizes the likelihood that a metro’s estimate is unduly swayed by a few extreme business locations.  In 2015, the top 15 metro areas in terms of Fintech market size per employee are shown in the figure below.

Aside from the fact that Chicago and Los Angeles didn’t make the list, look at the concentration in the Northeast region. 10 of the top 15 are in the Washington DC – Boston corridor.  Washington DC is the largest Fintech market in terms of revenue per employee at $12,863, followed by Springfield MA ($10,848) and Worcester MA-CT ($9,094).  Rounding out the top 5 are Boston MA-NH ($8,381) and Bridgeport CT ($7,851).  New York is 6^th with $7,844 per employee.

Washington, Boston and New York are not surprising.  But what about Springfield Massachusetts?

Savings and Loans in Springfield MA

According to 2015 US Census data, there were 4,254 employees on the payrolls of banking and securities & investments companies in the Springfield MA metro area.  Roughly 40% of these employees worked at 143 savings institution locations. Savings institutions (“savings and loans”) are apparently quite popular in New England, and quite lucrative.  85% of the total Fintech market in Springfield MA is attributable to savings institutions.

Savings institutions also account for most of the Fintech addressable market in neighboring Worcester metro (71%); but only 33% of Boston’s addressable market (although still is the top sub-sector).  In the neighboring Hartford CT metro (ranked 11^th), savings institutions account for 65% of the Fintech addressable market; and in the Portland ME metro (ranked 13^th), 67%.  So, indeed, savings institutions are popular in New England.

Although caution is always warranted when drilling down too deeply into market segments (due to low counts), this heat map reveals several interesting characteristics of the Springfield metro market:

(The heat map shows per employee Fintech market size by employee size of location and sub-sector.  A darker color and larger size indicate a larger market size per employee).

• Savings Institutions have the largest Fintech market size per employee across all location sizes in which savings institutions operate;
• Fintech market size per employee for savings institutions is over $20,000, while the average for Springfield is $10,848;
• While there are many other financial institutions in the smaller groups, savings institutions dominate the largest location sizes.

Making use of this analysis

How is this information useful?  Suppose your company has a solution for savings institutions. The Springfield MA metro has 143 prospects.  It is very accessible to the rest of the major financial markets in the Northeast.  And it most likely is ignored by your competitors located in those markets.  These prospects are likely very accessible and would be a great beachhead, providing enough revenue and referenceable customers to launch your business.  Similarly, if your mission is to disrupt the savings and loan industry, then Springfield has a concentration of customers you can target.

As always, data have different stories to tell.  Revenue per employee can also be used as a metric for productivity within the segment.  If you’re selling technology to improve employee productivity, your best market would be at the low end of the range.  In this case, savings and loans in Springfield would not be the best sub-sector to target.

We’ll continue taking apart the data on Fintech and offering a few observations along the way.  If there’s an angle you’d like us to explore in a future post, let us know.

This post was written with Tom Marsh, CTO at Boulder Equity Analytics (BEA).

The post Fintech, Savings and Loans and Springfield MA appeared first on KDD Analytics.

This is not just a single year phenomenon but the result of strong upward trends in IT investment by the Information Services industry since at least 2000.

The information services industry

The industry classification system used by the US government largely changed in 1997.  As a result of NAFTA, Canada, Mexico and the US collaborated on a new classification system called the North American Industrial Classification System (NAICS) (the US was previously using the Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) system).   Many sub-industries were reorganized in the new system.  And a new “industry” was created representing sub-industries involved in some way with providing  “information” services.

Although there are officially six, 3-digit NAICS Information Services sub-industries, the US Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) collapses these into four:  Broadcasting & Telecommunications, Information & Data Processing, Motion Picture & Sound Recording and Publishing.  Since our investment data come from the BEA, we will focus on these four sub-industries here.

Software investment

One of the IT investment themes in recent years has been the transition to “cloud-based” solutions.  In the case of software, Software as a Service (SaaS) is supplanting software installed on local computers (aka “packaged software”).   The BEA does not break out SaaS spending from other types of software investment.  So, unfortunately, we cannot tell whether SaaS is simply cannibalizing packaged software or whether it is contributing to net growth.

However, we can see that there has been strong growth in software investment in the Information Services industry since 2000.  As the interactive dashboard below shows, software investment grew by 9.8% per year per worker (measured in 2009 $) between 2000 and 2015, the most current year for which BEA data are available.  This is higher than the national average rate of growth in software investment of 7.9%.

As you read our analysis below, we invite you to follow along by making changes to the dashboard to show the trends we are discussing.  Changes are made in the “filters“ “Select industry”, “Select years” and “Select investment type” found at the top of the dashboard.  Also selecting “Select sub-industry to highlight” will bring the selected sub-industries to the forefront in the bottom two line charts.

There is wide variation, however, within the Information Services industry.  Software investment by the Information & Data Processing sub-industry has been growing by a whopping 15.9% per year per worker since 2000.  However, this has moderated some in recent years (8.0% per year over the 2010 to 2015 period).  In 2015, the Information & Data Processing sub-industry invested over $65,000 per worker in software (2009 $).

At the other end of the scale, Broadcasting & Telecommunications has been investing at only a 3.5% annual rate since 2000 (5.1% since 2010).  In 2015, this sub-industry was investing over $12,000 per worker in software.

Storage investment

Another but related IT investment theme has been the transition away from physical storage to virtual or cloud-based storage…think DropBox.  As we saw in a previous article, according to BEA data, total investment in physical storage (in 2009 $) began to decline in the US private sector in 2000.

However, not all industries (and sub-industries) have shown the same effect.  In the Information Services industry, physical storage investment per worker has declined by 1.4% per year since 2000 (3.8% since 2010).  Use the “Select investment type” filter to affect this change in the dashboard.

The Information & Data Processing sub-industry continued to invest in physical storage at a 6.7% annual rate since 2000.  It was the disinvestment by the Broadcasting & Telecommunications sub-industry (-7.3% per year) that is reflected in the overall Information Services industry negative growth of 1.4% per year.

However, in recent years, since 2010, the annual rate of change in storage investment has been negative across the entire Information Services industry, with Motion Picture & Sound Recording sub-industry leading the charge at -19.1% per year.

Other stories

There are many more stories the data can tell.  And we invite you to play with this dashboard to uncover them.

For example, a previous article discussed investment trends in the Healthcare industry.  Does using investment per worker (the above dashboard) change any of our conclusions in that article?

Drop us a line and let us know what you find.

The post Information Technology Investment in the US Information Services Industry appeared first on KDD Analytics.

Interactive investment dashboard

The interactive dashboard below shows IT investment for a group (1 or more) of user-selected, 3-digit NAICS industries (blue).  The rest of the US market is shown in gray.  The default selections are the 3 healthcare sub-industries of Hospitals, Ambulatory Care and Nursing Facilities (see “Select industry” in the dashboard).  The top chart shows investment over time in 2009 $; the bottom chart shows CAGR over time.

As you read our analysis below, we invite you to follow along by making changes to the dashboard to show the trends we are discussing.  Changes are made in the “filters” “Select industry”, “Select years” and “Select investment type” found at the top of the dashboard.

Healthcare information technology investment

In 2015 (the last year for which BEA data are available), the Healthcare industry invested $10.6 billion (2009 $) in computers, software and communications equipment (e.g. phone systems, internet and networking equipment).  62% of this was invested by Hospitals, 32% by Ambulatory Care providers and 6% by Nursing Facilities.

Note that Healthcare industry spending on information technology consists of more than equipment and software.  A sizable share is spent on IT services (such as system integration and consulting) and IT outsourcing.  Forrester estimates that the Healthcare industry spent over 3.5 times what it did on equipment on IT services and outsourcing in 2016.  Over 70% of this additional spending is on outsourcing alone.  The BEA data only cover “fixed asset gross investment”.

Of the three “equipment” components of Healthcare information technology investment, software has exhibited the strongest growth (see “Select investment type” in the dashboard).  Since 2000, software investment has grown by a compound annual rate of 7.6%, mirroring the growth seen by rest of the US market (7.9%).

Pop quiz: Using the dashboard above, of the three healthcare sub-industries, which one had the highest rate of growth in software investment over the 2000 to 2015 period? It may not be what you first suspect.

As of 2015, Healthcare investment in communications equipment has grown by 4.0% per year while computer (hardware) investment has grown by 3.6% per year.  Nursing Facilities exhibited the strongest growth in hardware investment at 5.7% per year.

Note that this is total investment which can rise due to higher demand at each facility and/or an increase in the number of facilities over time.

Computer hardware investment

Digging deeper into computer (hardware) equipment investment reveals some startling trends.

Both PC and server investment have been growing at 6.7% and 4.3% per year since 2000.  However, the annual rate of change in PC investment has been negative since about 2007.

Also, the annual rate of change in physical server investment has been essentially flat since about 2005.  This latter trend is consistent with movement towards virtual and cloud-based servers.

The real standout is investment in physical storage equipment.

Physical storage investment by the Healthcare industry has actually declined by 1.6% per year since 2000.  The most likely reason for this trend is again the movement towards “cloud” storage solutions.  Physical storage investment peaked in 2007 in the Healthcare industry.  Selecting “Select years” in the dashboard to show “1980 to 2015” and the “Select industry” to display to “All” reveals that the peak in physical storage equipment investment in the total, private US market occurred 7 years earlier in 2000.

Printers have also apparently lost their luster.  Healthcare investment in printers has declined by an annual rate of 1.7% since 2000.  Again, looking over the entire 1980 to 2015 time frame, printer investment peaked in 2002 and has been in a downward trend every since.

Healthcare investment in displays increased by 3.0% per year since 2000.  However, since 2004, the trend in annual investment has been flat.  Nursing Facilities exhibited the strongest growth in display investment at 5.3% per year over the 2000 to 2015 period.

What have been the IT investment trends in other industries?

We invite you to play with this dashboard to conduct a similar analysis for any one (or multiples) of 60+ industries.  The limitation, as alluded to above, is that the investment shown is total or aggregate investment.  On a per business or employee basis, trends may be quite different.  We will pick this up in a future article.

The post Healthcare Information Technology Investment Trends appeared first on KDD Analytics.

Why does information technology investment per worker matter?

While information technology (IT) investment per worker has grown over time across all industries, there clearly are industries that use IT more intensively in their production of goods and services.  Knowing how this intensity varies across industries can inform public policy decisions.  For example, the demand for labor may be impacted by the amount of IT workers have to work with.  Thus any policy (e.g. tax) targeting business investment decisions can have a differential effect on labor markets depending on the intensity with which IT is used.

Knowing how IT intensity varies across industries is also useful from a micro perspective.  How much ABC Corp located at 100 Main Street, Any Town USA spends on IT is probably unknown to B2B marketers.  However, knowing in which industry ABC Corp plays and how many employees work at the 100 Main Street location can yield a ball park estimate of how much ABC Corp can potentially spend on IT.

Such information would be quite useful for IT vendors selling into ABC Corp.

Where does one find data on IT intensity?

The big IT market research houses, such as Forrester and IDC, provide industry-level estimates of IT spending.  But usually at an aggregated industry-level (e.g. 2-digit NAICS or 1-digit SIC).  And they are unlikely to provide employee counts.

Fortunately, the US Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) provides estimates of investment in IT “equipment” (computers, software and communications).  While they do not provide estimates of spending on IT services (e.g. IT consulting, system integration and outsourcing), the BEA data provide insights into how much businesses are spending on the three other main components of IT.

Moreover, the BEA provides these data at the sub-industry, 3-digit NAICS level; they provide estimates of employment at this same level of disaggregation; and they provide these data every year.

What more could a data junkie want?

Information technology investment per worker (IT intensity)

IT intensity is defined as gross investment in hardware, software and communication equipment per worker.  In 2015 (the last year for which data are available), IT intensity averaged about $3,100 per US private sector worker (in 2009 $).  This is 3 times what it was in 1998.

However, this national average hides the dramatic variation across industries.  Below is an interactive dashboard which shows IT intensity expressed as an index (industry intensity/average intensity) for 2015.  Not surprisingly, the Information Services industry invested over 8 times the national average; the Agriculture industry just .03 times.

Drilling down into the Information Services industry (click on the bar chart) shows that it is the Data Processing and Broadcast and Telecommunications sub-industries that account for the lion’s share of Information Services industry investment (see the bottom chart).  Again, not too surprising.

The dashboard allows one to select the type of IT investment.  Selecting “Communications” reveals the intensity of investment in communications equipment (phone systems, internet and networking equipment).  Again, the Information Services industry leads the pack as a result of heavy investment in the Broadcast and Telecommunications sub-industries.

However, the bottom chart shows the ranking of all sub-industries (3-digit NAICS).  Interestingly, the Water Transport and Pipeline Transport industries are relatively intensive users of communications equipment.

If anyone knows why, drop us a line, we would like to know!

Other interesting findings…selecting “HW – Servers” reveals the intensity of investment in physical servers.  The top three sub-industries are Federal Reserve Banks, Rental and Leasing and Credit Intermediation.  At the 2-digit NAICS level, it is the Finance industry that is the top investor in servers, followed by the Wholesale industry.

We will leave it to the reader to play with the dashboard and uncover other interesting stories (e.g. in the Manufacturing industry, which sub-industry invests the most in storage equipment? in printers?).

Takeaway

Our takeaway is that although the “usual suspects” appear as high intensive users of IT, at the sub-industry (3-digit NAICS) level, there is wide and not always predictable variation.  Especially when drilling into the different categories of IT investment.

What is your takeaway?

In a future article, we will take up this subject again and examine in more detail how information technology investment per worker (IT intensity) has changed over time.

The post US Information Technology Investment per Worker appeared first on KDD Analytics.