Segmenting suppliers by economic activity
by Sebastien Mirolo on Sun, 6 Jul 2025
Creating Health, Safety, and Environmental questionnaires, there are multiple
axis suppliers can be classified against. This post aims to provide some entry
points into the realm of classification of economic activities.
Introduction
Number of employees and revenue based segmentations are obvious. Fitting a supplier into an "economic activity" category is less so. There are usually three axis suppliers are classified against:
Industry classification
| Created | Last updated | Name | Region in use |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1937 | 1987 | Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) | North America & U.K. |
| 1997 | 2022 | North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) | North America |
| 1970 | 2023 | Nomenclature générale des Activités économiques dans les Communautés Européennes (NACE) | European Union |
| 1958 | 2023 | International Standard Industrial Classification of All Economic Activities (ISIC) | United Nations |
At this point, SIC is being deprecated in favor of NAICS. SIC seems only useful for historical purposes.
Products and services classification
| Created | Last updated | Name | Region in use |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1988 | 2022 | Harmonized System (HS) CodesInternational | |
| 1999 | - | North American Product Classification System (NAPCS) | North America |
| 1983 | continuous | NIGP Commodity and Service Code ("NIGP Code") | U.S. Federal, State and local governments |
It is most likely that the HS and NAPCS codes only cover physical products.
Job classification
| Created | Last updated | Name | Region in use |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1958 | 2008 | International Standard Classification of Occupations | United Nations |
| 1977 | 2018 | U.S. Standard Occupational Classification (SOC) | United States |
The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) maintains the Direct Match Title File (DMTF) that contains job titles that match detailed occupations in the SOC.
by Sebastien Mirolo on Sun, 6 Jul 2025
