1.1.2—Business sectors

Business sectors classify the main stage or knowledge role of an activity: primary extracts, secondary transforms materials, tertiary delivers services, and quaternary creates or applies information and knowledge.

The sectors form a chain of production, but one organisation can span several stages. As economies develop, output and employment often move toward services and knowledge work; this is a pattern, not a rule for every country or firm.

Classify the activity being performed—not the customer or the brand. Ask: is it extracting a resource, manufacturing a product, providing a service, or producing specialised information?

Cocoa farming is primary; turning cocoa beans into chocolate is secondary; a supermarket selling the bar is tertiary; a laboratory developing a better forecasting model for the supply chain is quaternary. The same group could own all four activities, but each activity has a different sector role.

A sector label does not predict whether a business is profitable or socially valuable. Do not call every technology business quaternary: classify its dominant activity and explain the evidence.