Sectors

Five markets we know from both sides.

HealthHow the same money could deliver more and better care.Where demand outgrows supply, and how a provider stands out.EducationHow the system could reach every child and teach each one better.Where families look for more, and how a private school or faculty earns its premium.ICT & digital infrastructureHow support could follow skills and adoption at home, not headcount.Where the market moves from hours to solutions, and which firms are worth backing.Manufacturing & exportersHow support could help domestic firms grow, not only bring new plants.Where domestic manufacturers can sell more, and what it takes to get there.Agri-foodHow farm support could raise what a hectare earns.Where land earns most, and who can capture the value.All sectorsOverview

Topics

Five questions that cut across every market.

SMEs & entrepreneurshipHow support could reach the small and mid-sized firms able to grow.Where domestic know-how sits, and which firms are worth backing.Competitiveness & investmentHow support could raise productivity, not only jobs.Where firms have underinvested, and what it takes to catch up.Public financeHow each dinar could be tied to a purpose, and pay to the value of work.Where the state will spend, and how to compete for it.Green & digital transitionHow carbon revenue and support could help firms measure and cut, not only pay.Where clean power and carbon data open a market, and who can serve it.Skills & labour marketsHow adults in work and out of it could keep learning what the economy needs.Where to find the people a plan needs, and how to train and keep them.All topicsOverview

Services

Economic analysis for governments, donors and international organisations: we diagnose sectors and public spending, design and cost programmes, and evaluate what they changed.Economic analysis for companies and investors: we size markets and plan entry, find and assess firms to buy, and model what a business is worth.

Sector & value-chain diagnosticsWhere a sector creates value, who leads it, and what holds it back.Public expenditure & functional reviewsWhere public money goes, what it achieves, and how the same budget could do more.Policy & programme designWhom a programme should reach, with what instrument, and how it will be judged.Cost-benefit & fiscal impactWhat a policy or project will cost, year by year, and what it returns.EvaluationWhat a programme changed, for whom, and what would have happened anyway.Market entry studiesHow large the market is, who buys, who competes and what it takes to win.Policy, regulatory & public-demand riskHow incentives, licences, rules and public spending move a business case.Market-entry programmesFrom a study to an operation on the ground: set-up, people, partners and first customers.Business plansA plan a board can approve and a lender or investor can fund.Target search & screeningWhich firms exist, who owns them, and which deserve a closer look.Due diligenceWhat a target’s business, clients and earnings really are, before the price is set.Financial models & valuationWhat a business or an investment is worth, and how it pays back under different scenarios.Surveys & primary dataThe evidence that does not exist yet, collected so that it can be trusted.Custom analytical & performance toolsModels, dashboards and indices, used every time a decision comes back.All servicesOverview

Service · For institutions and donors · Diagnose

Sector & value-chain diagnostics

Where a sector creates value, who leads it, and what holds it back.

Context

What it answers

Before a ministry or a donor decides where to put support, it needs to know how a sector works: which firms carry its output and exports, where value is added and lost along the chain, who buys from whom, and what stops the next firms from growing. Official statistics stop at the sector average, which hides the few firms that matter and the constraints they share.

  • Which parts of the sector can grow, and which firms lead them?
  • Where along the chain is value lost, and why?
  • Which constraints can policy remove, and which belong to the market?

Evidence

How we work

We start from the filed accounts of every company in the sector and, where trade matters, customs records firm by firm, so the analysis rests on the whole population rather than a sample. We then go to the firms themselves, through interviews with owners, buyers and suppliers and, where needed, a survey, and test what we hear against the numbers. Each chain is read from its end markets back: what buyers require in standards, certification and volumes, who sets the terms, where the margins sit, and how the jobs and income it creates are spread across firms, regions, women and men. Segments are ranked on explicit criteria, and each conclusion states the evidence behind it. For international organisations we also work as local experts: mapping the people outside government who know a policy area, organising fact-finding and reviewing draft assessments line by line against what happens on the ground.

Value-chain mapping from firm accounts and customs data · end-market and buyer requirements · market-system analysis · sector potential rankings · local expertise for international assessments

Direction

What you get

A diagnostic with a map of the sector and its value chains, the firms and segments that lead it, and the constraints, in firms and in the services and rules around them, such as finance, skills, standards and logistics, ranked by how much they matter and who can remove them; the firm-level database behind it; and, where asked, a short list of measures with the institution that would own each.

What the tool looks like

Diagnostic

Which firms carry the sector

Share of firms against share of output

For institutions · Sector & value-chain diagnostics

Illustration with invented figures.

Examples of our work

For institutionsPublic Policy Secretariat and Ministry of Economy2019–20

Investment and export support for four manufacturing sectors: sector diagnostics and programme design

Official enterprise statistics and company accounts by detailed activity over a decade, trade data and a review of ministry, agency and donor programmes, set against five EU comparators. The four sectors are food, machinery and equipment, rubber and plastics, and wood and furniture.

For institutionsOECD2023–24Local expert

Competitiveness Outlook 2024: Serbia

Review of the fifteen draft chapters of the policy assessment for Serbia, from investment and competition to agriculture and the environment, against evidence from institutions and from the people the policies reach.

All work

Earlier experience

Before Econominess, Nemanja Šormaz did work of this kind in the roles below.

2016–2018Coordinator of the research team

Value chains in manufacturing

Value-chain studies of four manufacturing sectors in depth and eight more by desk review, built on more than a hundred company interviews, as the analytical base for industrial policy.

2016–2018Coordinator and co-author; project manager

Fruit and vegetable value chains

A value-chain analysis of food and drink as a base for industrial policy, and a baseline of fruit and vegetable exporters that matched customs and registry data for every exporter and interviewed more than a hundred firms.

2014–2018Project coordinator and co-author

Firm-level analysis of the whole economy

The first analyses of Serbian business built on the accounts of every registered company, tens of thousands of active firms, joined to trade data for about a thousand products. They include a survey of more than a thousand firms and an index that ranks 114 tradable sectors by their potential.

Talk to Nemanja Šormaz

The other side

Market entry, business plans, due diligence and valuation for companies and investors.Diagnostics, programme design, cost-benefit analysis and evaluation for institutions.

Read this as an investorRead this as an institution
Next servicePublic expenditure & functional reviews

Contact

Tell us the decision in front of you, and when you need it.

nemanja@econominess.rs

Company profile, PDF · Belgrade, Serbia