Industry Guides Skill

Overview

Use this skill as the sector-context layer for plan writing. It routes the agent to the correct industry sub-guide so section skills use realistic operating assumptions, benchmarks, and constraints for the business at hand.

Use When

• Use when a business plan, proposal, or pitch needs industry-specific benchmarks and operating context.
• Use when the sector materially changes margins, processes, regulation, or success factors.
• Use alongside core section skills to inject sector realism.

Do Not Use When

• Use the owning pipeline skill instead when the task is to draft the main business-plan artefact without sector routing.
• Do not use as a substitute for the core section skill that owns the main artifact.
• Do not assume a sector guide is authoritative for every geography without checking the country context.
• Do not copy raw reference material into a plan without translating it into the client's business reality.

Required Inputs

• Target industry or sub-sector
• Business model, scale, geography, and intended audience
• Any adjacent sections whose assumptions need sector grounding
• Known constraints or differentiators that affect which benchmarks are relevant

Workflow

1. Identify the closest industry guide that matches the client's actual operating model.
2. Read the guide and only the reference files needed for the current section.
3. Extract the sector assumptions that materially change the draft.
4. Reconcile those assumptions with country context and audience expectations.
5. Apply the sector logic to the owning section skill.
6. Flag where the available guide is only a partial fit.

Quality Bar

• Sector context materially improves realism.
• Benchmarks are used as ranges and decision aids, not as fabricated facts.
• Industry guidance aligns with the country and funding context.
• The integration makes the plan more specific, not more verbose.

Anti-Patterns

• Picking a broad sector label when a more specific guide exists.
• Applying guide assumptions mechanically without checking scale or business model.
• Using sector benchmarks that contradict the plan's own economics.
• Treating reference text as publishable plan prose.

Outputs

• A sector-informed input layer for the owning section skill
• Explicit benchmark assumptions and caveats
• Pointers to the most relevant guide and reference files

References

• Load the selected industry guide.md before applying section skills.
• For retail, also load retail/references/retail-operating-model-and-engine-plan.md

when the plan includes omnichannel operations, POS, merchandising, pricing, promotions, markdowns, loyalty, fulfilment, returns, shrink, vendor terms, private label, planograms, dashboards, or engine-readiness requirements.

Provide industry-specific context, benchmarks, and best practices to tailor business plan generation to the target sector.

How to Use

1. Identify the user's target industry
2. Load the relevant industry sub-directory's guide
3. Apply industry-specific benchmarks, cost structures, and operational standards when generating any business plan section
4. Flag where generic assumptions differ from industry norms

Available Industry Guides

Industry Guide Structure

Each industry sub-directory contains:

industry-guides/
 SKILL.md (this index file)
 [industry-name]/
     guide.md (industry overview, business model types, key success factors)
     references/
         financial-benchmarks.md (cost structures, margins, ratios, P&L templates)
         operations.md (staffing, equipment, supply chain, daily operations)
         [additional topic files as needed]

Integration with Core Skills

When an industry guide is active, it modifies the output of core skills:

Source Referencing in Business Plans

When generating the final business plan, cite the underlying reference books where they add credibility:

• Financial benchmarks and ratios cite the source when presenting industry-standard percentages, cost structures, or financial targets (e.g., "Industry benchmarks indicate a target food cost of 30-35% of food sales (Dittmer & Keefe, 2009)")
• Regulatory and compliance frameworks cite when referencing specific standards (e.g., HACCP, Uniform System of Accounts, organic certification standards)
• Market data and industry statistics cite when presenting market size, growth rates, or industry structure data
• Pricing and costing methodologies cite when applying specific pricing formulas or costing methods (e.g., contribution margin pricing, enterprise budgeting)
• Operational best practices cite when recommending specific management systems or benchmarks

Do NOT cite sources for:

• Generic business advice that is common knowledge
• The user's own market research or primary data
• Financial projections derived from the user's specific numbers

Format citations as parenthetical references: (Author, Year) on first use. Include a "Sources and References" section in the appendices listing all cited works with full bibliographic details.

Quality Criteria

• Financial benchmarks cite ranges, not single numbers (industries vary)
• Regulatory requirements note they are jurisdiction-dependent
• Startup costs provide ranges by business size/format
• Operational standards distinguish between formats (e.g., full-service vs. fast-casual)
• Common mistakes are specific to the industry, not generic business advice

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Inputs

Outputs

Evidence Produced

Capability Contract

Read or search access is required; editing or mutation is allowed only with authorised permission.

Routing and analysis default to read-only. Do not edit client facts, adopt a benchmark as a target, make regulatory or accounting claims, or recommend spending or production changes without explicit authority and verified current evidence.

Degraded Mode

Without a close guide, current source, country context, or finance doctrine, return a qualified partial sector brief with the mismatch and checks marked not assessed. Do not treat an old or foreign benchmark as current local evidence.

Decision Rules

Workflow

1. Classify the customer's activity, buyer, revenue model, delivery model, scale, geography, and decision.
2. Select the closest guide and document neighbouring guides rejected.
3. Load only references that change the owning section's assumptions or decisions.
4. Separate durable operating logic from time-sensitive figures; verify current facts or mark them unassessed.
5. Reconcile country, finance, regulation, customer, operations, and funding implications.
6. Run every applicable gate in ../../references/sector-regulatory-gates.md, carrying its cost, timing and stop condition into the plan and marking unavailable checks not assessed.
7. Produce the sector brief and source register, including mismatch and countercase; recover by revising the guide choice when the evidence contradicts it.
8. Stop release where a load-bearing claim is uncited, a regulatory stop condition is unresolved, or the benchmark conflicts with the plan model.

Quality Standards

Sector context must change a real decision, assumption, or risk. Benchmarks require source, period, geography, range, and fit; they never replace client evidence or current professional review.

Anti-Patterns

• Selecting retail for every business that sells something. Fix: classify the operating and revenue model first.
• Copying a guide paragraph into the plan. Fix: translate it into a client-specific assumption and implication.
• Using a single margin as an industry truth. Fix: cite a range and explain format, scale, geography, and period.
• Applying Uganda regulation to another country. Fix: load the correct country context and verify current law.
• Letting sector benchmarks override reconciled client data. Fix: investigate the variance and retain the supported figure.
• Hiding a partial guide fit. Fix: state the mismatch and research need.

Worked Example

A bakery with a shop and wholesale supply needs both food-processing and retail logic. Use food-processing for yield, quality, and production constraints, retail for merchandising and store operations, and reconcile inventory and margin definitions before setting targets. <!-- dual-compat-end -->