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Industry Taxonomy

Overview

ZORBA's Industry Taxonomy provides a structured, machine-readable classification of industries, sub-industries, business models, value drivers, and operational signals. It serves as the foundational reference data that powers industry-aware features across the Zontally platform — from Industry Editions and benchmarking to AI-guided strategy-to-execution workflows.

The taxonomy answers a deceptively simple question: What kind of organisation is this, and what does that imply about how it operates?

Every enterprise exists within an industry context. That context shapes which business models are viable, which capabilities matter most, how complex the supply chain is, how heavily regulated the operating environment is, and where agentic augmentation delivers the most leverage. The Industry Taxonomy captures these structural realities as data.

Taxonomy Structure

The taxonomy is a two-level hierarchy:

Industry
└── Sub-Industry

Each level carries a consistent set of attributes that describe the operational character of organisations within that segment.

Industries

Industries represent broad sectors of economic activity. ZORBA defines 15 industries covering the full spectrum of enterprise types:

# Industry Slug
1 Technology & Software technology-software
2 Financial Services financial-services
3 Healthcare & Life Sciences healthcare-life-sciences
4 Manufacturing & Industrial manufacturing-industrial
5 Retail & Consumer Goods retail-consumer-goods
6 Energy & Utilities energy-utilities
7 Telecommunications & Media telecommunications-media
8 Transportation & Logistics transportation-logistics
9 Public Sector & Government public-sector-government
10 Education & Non-Profit education-nonprofit
11 Real Estate & Construction real-estate-construction
12 Hospitality, Travel & Leisure hospitality-travel-leisure
13 Professional Services professional-services
14 Agriculture & Food Production agriculture-food-production
15 Mining & Natural Resources mining-natural-resources

Each industry includes:

  • Definition — a clear, concise description of the sector
  • Aliases — alternative names used in common parlance
  • Common business models — the revenue and delivery models typical across the sector
  • Common value drivers — the metrics and outcomes that matter most
  • Common capabilities — the organisational capabilities that define competitive advantage
  • Tags — lightweight labels for filtering and grouping
  • Signals — a structured profile of operational characteristics (see below)

Sub-Industries

Sub-industries represent distinct segments within a broader industry. For example, Technology & Software contains 8 sub-industries including Enterprise Software, Vertical SaaS, Cloud Infrastructure, and Cybersecurity.

ZORBA currently defines 88 sub-industries across the 15 industries.

Sub-industries carry a similar attribute set to industries, but more specific:

  • Definition — what makes this segment distinct
  • Business models — the specific models prevalent in this segment
  • Value drivers — the KPIs and outcomes that define success
  • Typical capabilities — the organisational capabilities most critical to compete
  • Customer types — who the organisations in this segment typically serve (e.g. Consumer, SMB, Enterprise, Government)
  • Tags — segment-specific labels
  • Signals — operational profile, potentially diverging from the parent industry

Signals

Signals are a structured set of ten dimensions that characterise the operational reality of an industry or sub-industry. Each signal is rated on a five-point scale: very-low, low, medium, high, very-high.

Signal What It Captures
digitalIntensity How central digital technology is to the core operating model
regulatoryIntensity The burden and complexity of regulatory and compliance requirements
operationalComplexity The inherent complexity of day-to-day operations
assetIntensity The degree to which the business depends on physical assets and capital investment
peopleIntensity How dependent the operating model is on human labour and expertise
customerComplexity The complexity of customer relationships, segmentation, and buying behaviour
salesComplexity The complexity of the sales motion (cycle length, stakeholders, deal structure)
serviceIntensity How central ongoing service delivery is to the value proposition
supplyChainComplexity The complexity of sourcing, logistics, and supply chain management
innovationIntensity The pace and importance of product/service innovation to competitive position

How Signals Are Used

Signals are not decorative metadata — they drive platform behaviour:

  • Edition selection — signals help match an organisation to the most appropriate Industry Edition
  • Capability prioritisation — high regulatoryIntensity elevates Risk, Legal & Compliance capabilities; high peopleIntensity elevates People & Talent
  • Agentic profile recommendations — industries with high digitalIntensity and innovationIntensity tend toward more autonomous agentic patterns; heavily regulated industries skew toward human-led patterns
  • Benchmarking — signals provide a structured basis for comparing organisations within and across segments
  • AI-guided workflows — the Zontally platform uses signals to contextualise recommendations, generate industry-appropriate templates, and calibrate default configurations

Signal Inheritance

Sub-industries inherit the signal profile of their parent industry as a baseline, but may override individual signals where the segment diverges. For example:

  • Technology & Software has supplyChainComplexity: low
  • Cloud Infrastructure (a sub-industry) keeps this as low
  • But a future Hardware Technology sub-industry might override to high

This inheritance model keeps the taxonomy maintainable while allowing precise characterisation at the segment level.

Source Format

The industry taxonomy is maintained as YAML source files in the industries/ directory:

industries/
├── model.yaml                        # Model metadata (version, status)
├── technology-software.yaml          # One file per industry
├── financial-services.yaml
├── healthcare-life-sciences.yaml
├── manufacturing-industrial.yaml
├── retail-consumer-goods.yaml
├── energy-utilities.yaml
├── telecommunications-media.yaml
├── transportation-logistics.yaml
├── public-sector-government.yaml
├── education-nonprofit.yaml
├── real-estate-construction.yaml
├── hospitality-travel-leisure.yaml
├── agriculture-food-production.yaml
└── mining-natural-resources.yaml

Industry File Structure

Each industry file follows this structure:

industry:
  id: "ind_technology_software"
  name: "Technology & Software"
  slug: "technology-software"
  definition: "Organisations that create, deliver, or enable digital products, platforms, and infrastructure."
  status: "active"
  aliases: ["Technology", "Software", "Tech"]
  commonBusinessModels: ["SaaS", "Subscription", "Usage-based", "Platform", "Licensing"]
  commonValueDrivers: ["Growth", "Retention", "Productivity", "Platform adoption", "Innovation speed"]
  commonCapabilities: ["Product management", "Engineering", "Customer support", "Revenue operations", "Security"]
  tags: ["digital", "cloud", "platform"]
  signals:
    digitalIntensity: "very-high"
    regulatoryIntensity: "medium"
    # ... all 10 signals

  subIndustries:
    - id: "subind_enterprise_software"
      name: "Enterprise Software"
      slug: "enterprise-software"
      definition: "Software companies serving business customers..."
      status: "active"
      businessModels: ["SaaS", "Subscription", "Licensing"]
      valueDrivers: ["ARR growth", "Net retention", "Adoption", "Time to value"]
      typicalCapabilities: ["Sales", "Customer success", "Support", "Product", "Engineering"]
      customerTypes: ["SMB", "Mid-market", "Enterprise"]
      tags: ["b2b", "applications"]
      signals:
        digitalIntensity: "very-high"
        # ... all 10 signals

ID Conventions

  • Industry IDs use the prefix ind_ (e.g. ind_financial_services)
  • Sub-industry IDs use the prefix subind_ (e.g. subind_enterprise_software)
  • IDs must be globally unique across the entire taxonomy

Build Pipeline

The industry taxonomy is compiled as part of the standard ZORBA build:

# Compile industry model only
npm run compile:industries

# Full build (includes industry compilation)
npm run build

The compiler (build/compile-industries.js):

  1. Reads industries/model.yaml for metadata
  2. Reads all industries/<slug>.yaml files
  3. Validates required fields and unique IDs
  4. Outputs dist/zorba-industries.json

The compiled JSON is the distribution format consumed by the Zontally platform and any downstream tooling.

Relationship to Industry Editions

The Industry Taxonomy and Industry Editions are complementary but distinct:

Aspect Industry Taxonomy Industry Edition
What it is Classification and signal data Customised ZORBA domain model
Granularity Industry → Sub-industry One edition per sub-industry (or industry)
Content Business models, value drivers, signals Overridden domains, capabilities, processes
Format industries/<slug>.yaml → dist/zorba-industries.json editions/<name>/ → dist/zorba-<name>.json
Purpose Describe what kind of organisation Describe how it should be structured in ZORBA

The taxonomy tells you that Enterprise Software companies typically have very high sales complexity and digital intensity. The Enterprise Software edition translates that knowledge into concrete domain, capability, and process definitions — renaming "Product/Service & Innovation" to "Product & Innovation", sharpening process names to use software-specific terminology, and so on.

In the Zontally platform, an organisation's industry and sub-industry selection drives which edition is recommended, and the signals calibrate default configurations within that edition.

Extending the Taxonomy

Adding a Sub-Industry

To add a new sub-industry, edit the relevant industry YAML file and add an entry to the subIndustries list. Ensure:

  • The id is globally unique (use the subind_ prefix)
  • All required fields are populated (id, name, slug, definition, status)
  • All 10 signals are specified
  • Run npm run compile:industries to validate

Adding an Industry

To add a new top-level industry:

  1. Create a new file industries/<slug>.yaml
  2. Follow the standard industry file structure
  3. Use the ind_ prefix for the ID
  4. Include all required fields and at least one sub-industry
  5. Run npm run compile:industries to validate and compile

Status Values

Industries and sub-industries support a status field:

  • active — included in compiled output and available in the platform
  • draft — work in progress, included in output but flagged
  • deprecated — scheduled for removal, included with deprecation notice

Current Coverage

The v1.0 taxonomy covers 15 industries and 88 sub-industries, spanning:

  • Digital-native sectors (Technology, Fintech, Digital Health)
  • Heavily regulated sectors (Financial Services, Healthcare, Energy, Public Sector)
  • Asset-intensive sectors (Manufacturing, Real Estate, Transportation)
  • People-intensive sectors (Professional Services, Education, Hospitality)
  • Mission-driven sectors (Non-Profit, Public Health & Education)

This provides sufficient coverage for the majority of enterprise segmentation use cases. The taxonomy is designed to grow incrementally — new sub-industries can be added without disrupting existing ones.