Most industrial research firms have traditionally relied on reported data, company disclosures, and periodic surveys to assess market activity. These approaches can offer useful directional insight, but they often lag real-world conditions and may leave room for gaps, especially in capital-intensive industries where timing, execution, and on-the-ground progress matter more than projections. For companies making multibillion-dollar capital expenditure decisions, delayed or incomplete visibility can potentially translate into real financial risk.

That gap is where Industrial Info Resources (IIR) has built its reputation over the past 43 years. Rather than relying on reported estimates or sentiment-based indicators, IIR focuses exclusively on industrial markets, delivering direct, on-the-ground intelligence across energy, oil and gas, power generation and chemicals, as well as manufacturing, data centers, mining and infrastructure.

Its insight is based not on surveys or forecasts, but rather on asset-level information and real-time project tracking, which reflects what is being constructed, added, delayed, or decommissioned globally.

For finance professionals globally, this is not just a theoretical distinction. It can be a matter of market responsiveness and forecasting.

The Founding Father of Trusted Data

Every company embodies a mindset derived from its founder. In IIR’s case, this mindset is attributed to Ed Lewis. A construction expert with an information breakthrough mindset, Lewis established IIR in 1983.

At the time, Lewis didn’t have a goal to shake up market research. The founding of IIR occurred during a very uncertain time in Lewis’s life. Having recently found himself out of a job and with a family to support, he started visiting former clients to simply ask them a question: “What problems does your business struggle with most?”

The solution didn’t lie in labor or materials, but rather in information. His former construction clients weren’t getting accurate and timely information with respect to projects and facilities, which were important to them. Timetables were being changed suddenly. Forecasts were going amiss.

“Back in the 1980s, like many in the energy and industrial markets, the recession hit hard, and I was another casualty of that and found myself without a job. I was married with a young family, and it was very much a case of sink or swim. I chose to swim. I had been involved in the construction industry, which, at that time, had an unemployment rate of over 24% at its height. My particular background back then was selling construction and project management solutions; this provided me with a solid grounding of both data and technology.

Lewis started IIR from a team of five people and grew the company into an international organization with over 500 staff spread across different continents. During this time, he managed to establish a whole new genre in the field of industrial market intelligence based on verification, credibility, and accountability.

Surveillance-Grade Market Research and Data

Most market intelligence solutions cover many industries, but only at a general level. IIR takes a different, more niche, approach, focusing on depth rather than breadth. The company works in industries where even small changes in capacity, project schedules, or asset performance could shift billions of dollars.

“In a world where market conditions can shift overnight and uncertainty is the only constant, data is no longer just a commodity. It’s a strategic imperative. Over the last 40-plus years, we’ve seen the information service sector constantly evolve; from the information age, defined by the gathering and dissemination of data, to the knowledge age, where the value now lies in interpreting and understanding that data. Today, we’re pushing beyond both. The next frontier, the answer age, demands clarity, foresight, and the ability to act with confidence, even amid the constant change and complexity that we now have to contend with.

But we recognize that the barriers are being lowered through the surge in AI applications and tools that are now available. Even the most advanced AI is only as strong as the data that feeds it. The key lies in being able to feed your AI models with only the most accurate data, or what we call ‘Trusted Data.’ AI on its own can’t fast track you to high-quality insights. Your output is only as strong as the data fueling it. Trusted data is to AI as gasoline is to an engine. Without it, performance may fall flat,” says Ed Lewis, CEO and Founder of Industrial Info Resources.

In the energy, power, data centers, oil/gas, and infrastructure sectors, it’s not enough to understand what is being developed. Companies must have a grasp on every detail, including when development projects might come into service, how big they will be, and if they’re likely capable of shaping important trade decisions.

IIR provides this information through a set of practical tools used in financial and industrial circles. Heat maps across industries show shifting production capacity and investment trends in different regions. Data feeds for trading and analysis tools include signals related to tangible assets rather than mathematical projections. Detailed industry reports offer additional information, in addition to news digest information that provides insight into projects before they hit mainstream news. For financial institutions, energy developers, and infrastructure investors, this clarity could greatly contribute to making informed decisions on when to invest in the market.

Real-Time Intelligence That Begins at the Source

Over forty years later, what has consistently set IIR apart is how it gathers information. While the norm has been for market intelligence solutions to rely on secondary and passive research, IIR has wielded a hands-on approach to better serve the industries it caters to. By connecting directly with owners, operators, and engineers to actively check project status and plant activity, IIR’s team maintains its decades-long reputation for real-time intel that the industrial community relies on.

With a series of models analyzing shifting demand, forecasting capacity market analysis, or assessing exposure risk, accuracy is not negotiable. Every piece of information is double-verified before reaching the company’s clients.

Although information is plentiful, trust is a rare commodity; IIR has established a reputation through the hard work of validation. Its end product is surveillance-grade industrial intelligence that corresponds with what is really taking place in the most important markets in the world.

Wherever uncertainty and major capital outlays are involved, this predictability can make all the difference in turning information into insight and insight into action.