Who It's For

What types of companies subscribe to this product?

Industry Economics Worldwide is used by organizations that need reliable, country-level data on manufacturing cost drivers — from companies evaluating plant investments to consulting firms building competitive intelligence services.

The most common subscriber profiles include:

• Engineering, Construction & EPC Firms — Use plant construction cost indexes and location factors to build accurate CAPEX estimates and compare construction economics across countries.
• Basic Chemicals, Petrochemicals & Specialty Chemicals Manufacturers — Track industrial utility costs and construction indexes to monitor the competitiveness of their manufacturing operations over time.
• Industrial & Consumer Goods Manufacturers — Assess operating cost differences across production locations using utility prices and location factors.
• Banks & Financial Institutions — Apply construction cost indexes and location factors to benchmark and stress-test capital investment assumptions in industrial financing.
• Government, NGOs & Academia — Use cross-country utility price and construction cost data for policy analysis, economic research, and infrastructure assessments.
• Information Providers & Consulting Firms — Integrate IEW data into client deliverables and proprietary platforms under the Ultimate plan, which includes third-party sharing and integration rights.

The Pro plan is the most popular entry point for international businesses comparing costs across multiple countries, while the Ultimate plan is designed specifically for consulting companies, service providers, and software platforms with integration needs.

Can I compare manufacturing costs across countries?

Cross-country comparison of manufacturing competitiveness is the primary use case for Industry Economics Worldwide. The product provides three data categories that together capture the main cost drivers of industrial manufacturing at country level:

• Industrial Utilities Prices & Costs — covers 10 key utilities (Chilled Water, Cooling Water, Demineralized Water, Process Water, Compressed Air, Nitrogen, Oxygen, Hydrogen, Steam, and Carbon Monoxide) used as operating cost inputs across manufacturing processes.
• Plant Construction Cost Indexes — tracks how capital costs for building industrial plants have evolved over time in each country, normalized to January 2000 = 100.
• Plant Location Factors — compares the cost of building a plant in a given country relative to a base location, enabling direct cross-country cost comparisons.

Used together, these data categories let teams answer questions such as: Which country offers lower operating costs for a new production facility? How have construction costs in Brazil evolved relative to India over the past decade? What is the relative cost premium of building a plant in Germany versus Mexico?

Data is available for up to 33 countries. Pro, Advanced, and Ultimate plans cover multiple countries simultaneously, making them suited for systematic benchmarking across regions.

Can strategy teams use this for investment location decisions?

Corporate strategy and planning professionals are among the core users of Industry Economics Worldwide. The product's data categories map directly to the inputs needed for investment location analysis:

• Plant location factors provide a quantified measure of how much more or less expensive it is to build a plant in a target country compared to a reference location — a direct input for screening investment sites on a capital cost basis.
• Plant construction cost indexes allow strategy teams to adjust historical CAPEX estimates to current cost levels, improving the accuracy of budget projections for new projects.
• Industrial utility prices feed into operating cost models, enabling side-by-side comparisons of ongoing production economics across candidate locations.
• Historical trends and forecasts (available on Pro and higher plans) let teams track how each country's cost environment has evolved and project near-term movements, supporting longer-horizon investment decisions.

Together, these data points help strategy teams answer a central investment location question: given capital costs, utility costs, and cost trends, which country offers the most favorable conditions for a new manufacturing facility?

Is this product relevant for cost engineers and analysts?

Industry Economics Worldwide is a direct fit for cost engineers and investment analysts who build CAPEX and OPEX models for industrial projects. The three data categories address specific modeling needs:

• Plant construction cost indexes — used to escalate or de-escalate a capital cost estimate from the year it was produced to the current period, maintaining model accuracy over time.
• Plant location factors — used to convert a cost estimate developed for one country into an equivalent estimate for another country. This is particularly useful when a reference case exists for a well-studied location and the analyst needs to assess a less-documented market.
• Industrial utility prices — used as OPEX inputs in financial models, covering the 10 industrial utilities most commonly consumed in chemical and industrial manufacturing processes.

The Advanced and Ultimate plans include Excel Add-In, Power BI, and API access, allowing cost engineering teams to feed IEW data directly into their existing modeling environments without manual data entry.

Can procurement teams use this to benchmark utility costs?

Industry Economics Worldwide covers industrial utility prices and costs for 10 utilities across up to 33 countries, including Chilled Water, Cooling Water, Demineralized Water, Process Water, Compressed Air, Nitrogen, Oxygen, Hydrogen, Steam, and Carbon Monoxide. These are the utilities most commonly consumed in chemical and industrial manufacturing operations.

Procurement and supply chain professionals can use this data to benchmark supplier utility cost claims against country-level reference values, assess whether utility cost structures at different sourcing locations are competitive, and understand regional variations in operating cost inputs that affect manufacturing economics.

Is this data suitable for cross-country policy analysis?

Policymakers, advisors, and researchers who need comparable, multi-country data on industrial cost environments are among the users that Industry Economics Worldwide is designed for. The Ultimate plan is specifically recommended for this audience, providing access to the full 33-country dataset with the deepest historical coverage (up to 15 years).

Relevant data for policy and research purposes includes:

• Industrial utility prices across 33 countries — enabling assessments of how energy and utility costs compare across economies, and how they influence manufacturing competitiveness.
• Plant construction cost indexes — useful for tracking infrastructure cost trends and evaluating the investment climate for industrial development in different regions.
• Plant location factors — provide a standardized, relative measure of plant construction costs across countries, supporting evidence-based comparisons for industrial policy design.
• Historical trends — monthly data going back up to 15 years (Ultimate plan) supports long-term trend analysis for policy evaluation and economic research.

The consistent methodology across all 33 countries ensures that cross-country comparisons are based on standardized, auditable data — an important requirement for analytical work in policy and academic contexts.

Can R&D teams use this for techno-economic assessments?

R&D engineers and researchers conducting techno-economic assessments (TEA) can use Industry Economics Worldwide as a source of utility cost and capital cost inputs for their OPEX and CAPEX calculations.

Industrial utility prices — covering Steam, Hydrogen, Nitrogen, Oxygen, Compressed Air, and other key process inputs — are standard OPEX components in TEA models. Country-level utility cost data from IEW allows R&D teams to evaluate the economics of a process at different geographic locations, a common requirement when assessing the commercial viability of a new production route.

Plant construction cost indexes and location factors can supplement CAPEX estimation, particularly when adapting a cost estimate developed for one region to another location considered for scale-up or commercial deployment.

Can consulting firms integrate this data into their services?

Consulting companies and service providers can integrate Industry Economics Worldwide data into their client deliverables and proprietary platforms through the Ultimate plan, which is specifically designed for this use case.

The Ultimate plan includes:

• Third-party sharing rights — data can be shared with clients and third parties, enabling use in consulting reports, presentations, and analysis delivered to end clients.
• Integration into products and services — data can be embedded into the subscriber's own software, platforms, or managed services.
• REST Web API with up to 20 API users and 500+ requests per country, supporting programmatic data access and automated workflows.
• Monthly downloadable spreadsheets for offline analysis and distribution.
• Multiple domain access and customizable terms and conditions for enterprise-scale arrangements.

The Starter, Pro, and Advanced plans restrict use to internal purposes within the subscribing organization or business group. Only the Ultimate plan grants rights to share data externally or incorporate it into commercial offerings.

How do companies typically use plant location factors?

Plant location factors express the relative cost of building an industrial plant in a given country compared to a reference location. A factor greater than 1.0 means construction is more expensive in that country than the reference; a factor below 1.0 means it is cheaper.

The most common application is converting a capital cost estimate developed for one country into an equivalent estimate for another. This is particularly useful when detailed cost data exists for a well-studied base location (for example, the United States) but not for the target investment location.

Beyond individual project estimates, companies use plant location factors to:

• Screen and rank candidate countries for new manufacturing investments based on relative construction cost.
• Adjust benchmarks and cost databases that were developed for a different geography.
• Prepare cross-country capital cost comparisons for strategic planning and board-level investment decisions.

The User Guide PDF, accessible from within the IEW product interface, provides step-by-step instructions for applying plant location factors to capital cost conversions.