To get a first estimate of the size of the potential multiple sources are available.
LinkedIn Sales Navigator can provide an insight in the number of potential clients. Filter by region and industry. This can be combined with a keyword. Look under Company headcount to see the numbers per company size group.
Gartner
Which ERP solution is the market leader in the country. This information is not generally available. When this is important for your company you could considder buying this report by Gartner.
https://www.gartner.com/en/documents/4000842
Built with
CMS solutions
Builtwith (https://builtwith.com/) offers leads based on web technologies used. Builtwith has scraped websites to find hints like a tracking pixel or a footprint to identify webtechnologies used. When you aim at companies that use Hubspot, WordPress, Salesforce, or another technology that can be identified via the website then Builtwith can provide a good list. Multiple CRM integrations are available and can be found here https://builtwith.com/crm-integrations. A browser addon is available as well and can come iin handy for researching individual websites. Browser extensions can be found here. https://builtwith.com/toolbar
The chamber of commerce
The chamber of commerce in the Netherlands
In some countries the Chamber of Commerce (CoC) has a different setup. In the Netherlands there is one CoC with multiple locations, all working with the same database. Meanwhile the GDPR has changed how the CoC in the Netherlands works. It used to be possible to get an account and make a selection of companies and responsible persons and add this to your CRM.
In 2019 the Dutch GDPR authority (Autoriteit Persoonsgegevens) objected to the current situation. The data the CoC provides is used for more reasons than economic safety and market research. The CoC responded that a change of law is needed to protect Freelancers against Marketeers, but still enable companies to do market research, competitor analyses and checks for economic safety. We expect that there will be a change stating that the data can only be used for the purposes as described above and not for marketing purposes. Until this law is in place the CoC has changed the way they work and implemented a check by phone to verify the purpose of the data-purchase. At this point we are doing a competitor analysis and market research, which is allowed. You can call them at
088 585 1585 and choose option 5.
More information is available here:
https://www.kvk.nl/producten-bestellen/uw-actuele-klantenbestand/adressenbestand/
Meanwhile the CoC still has its obligations and one of them is called “Open Data”. Hence, they have made available a .csv file containing all organizations in an anonymized way (without the organization name, street address, phone number, web address, email, contact person). The file does contain SBI codes which can be used to get an estimate of the number of companies in a specific industry. We must remark that the .csv file is too large for Excel, so you need to split it up if you want to use it in Excel. The file can be downloaded here:
https://static.kvk.nl/download/kvk-open-data-set-handelsregister.zip
Central Burro for Statistics
The Dutch Central Burro for Statistics offers an open dataset. It can be found here
https://opendata.cbs.nl/statline/#/CBS/nl/dataset/81589NED/table?dl=60BBC
Industry societies
Industry societies (In Dutch Branche vereniging) can provide insight in the number of potentials. The website of the industry society occasionally shows a list of members (Companies). These can be copies to an excel sheet and provide insight in the number of companies in the industry. Here is a list of Industry Societies in the Netherlands:
A Disclaimer
What makes up an industry is often defined by a market leader who sells to this industry. The “crossing the chasm” methodology states that you can only win a fight with a market leader when you can determine the setting. This means that later on you probably need to rethink the setup of the industry to create a “battlefield” to your advantage. Blue Ocean Strategy states something similar. To be different than the competition you need to reinvent what makes up the industry.
