How Whitecap Consulting enhanced their capability to accurately define industry boundaries

Whitecap Consulting, a regional strategy consultancy, has been providing client advisory services, performing commercial due diligence, and producing published reports on regional and national sector ecosystems, for over a decade.

With offices in key cities including Leeds, Manchester, Milton Keynes, Birmingham, Bristol and Newcastle, Whitecap serves predominantly mid-sized firms across a wide range of sectors. This includes emerging tech-driven sectors such as FinTech, LegalTech, and EdTech, and Whitecap often produces regional ecosystem reports for these sectors.

Recent reports include, a research and innovation roadmap for the West Midlands, a financial and professional services skills report for West Yorkshire, and FinTech ecosystem reports for regions including Norfolk, the South West and the Liverpool City Region.

Previously, for ecosystem analysis and sector-specific reporting, Whitecap Consulting primarily relied on SIC codes to categorise businesses. However, SIC codes proved outdated, especially when trying to accurately capture emerging industries.

James Lee, a consultant at Whitecap, highlighted the difficulty of granular categorisation and finding accurate lists of companies aligned with specific definitions, particularly in sectors like FinTech.

This limitation led to time-consuming data collection, hindering Whitecap’s ability to map out business ecosystems effectively.

Whitecap Consulting adopted The Data City platform to help overcome the limitations of SIC codes, specifically utilising its machine-learning list building tool.

The platform’s capacity to generate business data lists based on similarities helped Whitecap identify companies that might have otherwise gone unrecognised. Additionally, The Data City’s real-time metrics such as turnover, employee count, founder diversity and growth estimates made it easier to compile comprehensive lists and perform in-depth analyses on regional markets.

Through The Data City platform, Whitecap Consulting enhanced their capability to accurately define industry boundaries for specific sectors, giving them more control over the accuracy of their reports.

The initial challenges around outdated SIC code data were mitigated by the platform’s ability to create bespoke business sectors, allowing Whitecap Consulting to enhance its reports significantly.