What Are Clusters And Why Are They Important

Clusters allow you to curate your search based on the definitions of the U.S. Cluster Mapping Project. In short, a cluster is a geographic concentration of interconnected businesses, suppliers, and associated institutions in a given industry. For example, bio-pharmaceuticals or plastics. Clusters help capture the key players in an industry, where the supply chain can go more than 10 levels deep.

Step One:

Let’s go to the Company Finder and select the orange Cluster tile.

Step Two:

You can select your cluster directly or get a little more specific by opening any drop-down menu to select a sub-cluster. In this case, we'll select the Aircraft sub-cluster that’s nested in the Aerospace Vehicles and Defense cluster.

Your aircraft cluster search is now ready for take-off! 😊
You can play around with the Company Finder criteria as per usual, but be sure to switch to the GIS map view to check out the regions that have the highest number of companies within that cluster!

Let’s head back to the home page and jump to the Industry Finder tile.

In the Industry Finder, you have two options to select from: the NAICS codes on the left in yellow OR the dark orange Cluster tile on the right. 

Just make your cluster selection - we'll stick with Aircraft from before.

How To Use The Industry Finder To Find Business Clusters - Watch Video

Not only does Gazelle give you the breakdown of all the 6-digit NAICS that make up a Cluster or Sub-Cluster, but you get also can see stats on the Aircraft cluster (an aggregation of all the individual NAICS) including occupational profile, performance, and supply chain.

In the meantime, if you have any issues, reach out to us by using the live chat feature or emailing gazellehelp@lightcast.io.

Happy Gazelle-ing!