Location Intelligence & data vis explore US software industry
It’s pretty safe to say that whether you work in the Business Intelligence (BI) industry, or are in charge of implementing and managing BI processes at your organization, you’re into IT. And of course everyone knows that America is an IT and BI pioneer, innovator and global hub.
But where – specifically – are States-based IT companies located? Is there a pattern? Are organizations of similar employee and revenue size grouped together? What about sub categories? And is company type – public, private or government – a common determinant in geographic groupings and spread?
Let’s investigate using data visualization and Location Intelligence (LI).
Concentration of companies in the Software & Internet industry within the US (2010)
The first visualization reveals that companies within the ‘Software & Internet’ industry are concentrated along the eastern and western coastlines.
The Northeastern corner, stretching from the East coast of Rhode Island and West Virginia, along the northern border with Canada to Wisconsin, is particularly densely populated.
US companies in the Software & Internet industry by location and number of employees (2010)
But where are the companies with the largest staff count? Are they clustered together? Are they situated within the populous areas already identified? Or are they positioned elsewhere?
Unsurprisingly, the big boys set up shop in the midst of the action. The location of companies with the largest number of employees mirror the concentration and spread of companies in the Software & Internet industry almost perfectly – the most densely populated areas harbor the organizations with the largest number of employees. The only minor exception is on the southern seaboard near Louisiana, where a number of organizations are located, but none with big staff counts.
US companies in the Software & Internet industry by location and total revenue (2010)
However, does company concentration and number of employees correlate with revenue? Interestingly, the association is only partial.
The California bay area has the trifecta, with a large number of organizations, employees and high revenue. The eastern shoreline, with a high density of industry-related companies and sizeable staff count, is home to several organizations with substantial incomes (though not on the same scale as the West coast). And even though Wisconsin and North Dakota are home to numerous big (by staff count) players in the Software & Internet space, there are no enormous companies in terms of revenue along the Canadian border.
US companies in the Software & Internet industry by location, total revenue and type (Public, private or other) (2010)
Private enterprises are basically constrained to the eastern side of the country. Publicly held companies align with density, revenue and employee metrics, whilst ‘other’ organizations barely rate a mention. Other than that, there are no discernable geographic groupings by company type.
Noticeably, the number of publicly held corporations far exceeds private and ‘other’ organizations. All the largest companies by revenue are also publicly held.
US companies in the Software & Internet industry by location, revenue and sub-industry (2010)
The majority of organizations, irrespective of annual revenue, deal in and develop software.
There are surprisingly few companies (of any significant size) working in the field of data analytics.
The biggest bubble – by about 4bn in annual revenue – belongs to the E-commerce sub-category, a publicly owned entity with over 8.5bn in total revenues for 2010.
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