Introductory Report
Geography: Ontario
Period: May 2019, historic financials from 2017
Industry: Software
Time Span: day, week, month, year
User Need Daily Cycles
Graph Summary:
- The largest weekday need for Software is between 9 am and 4 pm daily with a break at 12 pm.
- The largest weekend need for Software is at 3 am.
Recommendation:
- Ideally a B2B company would contact target customers between 10 am and 12 noon, and 2 pm and 3 pm for the best results.
- While B2C companies would want to contact customers at 3-4 am on weekends.
- Ads, Email, or Phone messaging will be the most effective for these target customers at these times.
Sources: Redpimento search traffic stats
User Need Yearly Geography
| 1-yr Rank | City | Search Strength Per Thousand |
| 1 | Waterloo | 81.92% |
| 2 | Guelph | 60.70% |
| 3 | Kingston | 53.31% |
| 4 | Oakville | 51.59% |
| 5 | Oshawa | 46.41% |
| 6 | Richmond Hill | 43.07% |
| 7 | Burlington | 41.46% |
| 8 | Kitchener | 30.87% |
| 9 | Markham | 30.09% |
| 10 | Windsor | 29.47% |
| 11 | Vaughan | 21.88% |
| 12 | London | 16.41% |
| 13 | Brampton | 12.47% |
| 14 | Mississauga | 10.95% |
| 15 | Hamilton | 9.31% |
| 16 | Ottawa | 8.88% |
| 17 | Toronto | 3.51% |
Chart Summary:
- Waterloo, Guelph, Kingston all have more searches per person for Software than do centres like Toronto, Ottawa, Hamilton and Mississauga.
The Top 15 Searches across all Ontario:
- editing software
- video editing software
- editing software free
- free video editing software
- recording software
- accounting software
- best video editing software
- photo editing software
- from software
- scheduling software
- microsoft software
- open source software
- computer software
- photo editing software free
- best video editing software free
Recommendations:
- For out-of-home advertising campaigns, University towns such as Waterloo, Guelph, and Kingston would be ideal for B2C only.
- The major centres such as Toronto, Ottawa, Hamilton, Mississauga, Brampton and London should be avoided with OOH advertising as the cost per view is higher, but the likelihood of finding an interested person is low. OOH in these geographies is an avoid for B2C and B2B
Sources: Redpimento search traffic stats
Competitors in the Mississauga Market
Top by Advertising Spend
- Prophix Software Inc.
- CAD Systems Consultants Limited
- Ancor Tech
- Hunter GIS
- Create Tech
- Modular Software Ltd.
- Posera Ltd.
- Wescom Solutions Inc.
- Multikare
- Forsythe Technology Canada Inc
Top companies 1-10 employees
- Trexo Robotics
- Crossport Network Solutions
- W5RTC
Top companies 11-50 employees
- SceneDoc (Siamese Systems)
- OneKosmos
- Skynet Cloud Systems
Top companies 51-100 employees
- Veriday
- Cycloides
- MVC
Sources: YellowPages, AdWords, Crunchbase
Financials By Revenue in the Software Industry
| Number of Companies | 482 | 482 | 482 | 482 |
| Revenue Range | $30K – $87K | $87K – $187K | $187K – $802K | $802K – $5M |
| Averages | all dollar amounts in (‘000) | |||
| Revenue | $55.9 | $131.2 | $401.9 | $2,107.7 |
| Cost of Sales | $6.2 | $13.1 | $55.2 | $377.9 |
| Purchases, materials and sub-contracts | $5.7 | $9.8 | $42.4 | $278.8 |
| Advertising and Promotion | $1.7 | $5.5 | $15.0 | $80.4 |
| TOTAL SALES OPEX | $13.6 | $28.4 | $112.6 | $737.1 |
| Ratio | 24.3% | 21.6% | 28.0% | 35.0% |
| Wages and Benefits | $5.7 | $9.8 | $42.4 | $278.8 |
| Labour and Commissions | $16.3 | $50.7 | $204.8 | $992.9 |
| TOTAL PEOPLE COSTS | $22.0 | $60.5 | $247.2 | $1,271.7 |
| Ratio | 39.4% | 46.1% | 61.5% | 60.3% |
| Utilities | $2.1 | $3.5 | $10.0 | $39.8 |
| Rent | $4.7 | $5.2 | $16.6 | $72.6 |
| Interest and bank charges | $2.1 | $9.6 | $4.5 | $24.7 |
| Professional and Business Fees | $5.8 | $9.8 | $26.8 | $120.5 |
| Insurance | $0.5 | $0.9 | $2.7 | $10.1 |
| TOTAL FIXED COSTS | $15.2 | $29.0 | $60.6 | $267.7 |
| Ratio | 27.2% | 22.1% | 15.1% | 12.7% |
Financials Summary:
- Notice that the sales-related operating expense ratio goes up as your revenue increases (so not only are you paying more because you are earning more, you are leaving more of the money on the table as a cost)
- Notice that in the Software Industry your people costs ratio go up faster than sales-related operating expense
- Your fixed costs ratio actually go down as your revenue grows.
- Increases in effective advertising directly increase revenue
Recommendations:
- Price your products and services to be profitable
- Use the industry average performance for each revenue stage of your company in your own projections
- People costs are your biggest expense, substantial improvements in the cost centre means more margin is left in the company. Smart hiring, low base salary and stock-based compensation might be an option to keep you profitable as you grow
- spend at least 4% of your revenue target on advertising and promotion
Statistics Canada also reports that 74.5% of companies are profitable while the remainder (25.5%) are money losers. This is not a very healthy ratio as compared to other industries. Clearly there are more companies that enter into this industry without a strong fear of losing money.
Recommendation:
- Work on finding customers, generating demand and building profitable products and services from the outset
Source: Statistics Canada – Small business profiles, 2017