Concentration

The share of a total held by a few members: a partner's fees from three clients, a site's inbound from one supplier, a desk's revenue from its top five accounts. Risk expressed as a fraction.

DefinitionThe share of a total held by a few members: a partner's fees from three clients, a site's inbound from one supplier, a desk's revenue from its top five accounts. Risk expressed as a fraction.

How it is computed

The largest N members' value divided by the total, or the number of members that make up a threshold share. Top-five share and the count to eighty percent are the usual pair.

Where it appears

Partner books, supplier bases, customer portfolios, hospitality accounts. The same measure in every case, and the same reading: the fewer members it takes to reach the threshold, the more exposed the total is to one of them leaving.

How it is computed

The share of a total held by its largest members: top one, top five and top ten, with the prior period beside each, computed after rolling members up to their parents.

Example

A partner bills $2.4 million, of which $1.5 million comes from three clients: 63 percent. Firm-wide concentration is modest; this partner's book is fragile.

Where it goes wrong

Measured only at company level. The risk usually sits inside one person's book, one site or one lane.

Articles that use this term

AI and self-service analytics

A weekly sales digest worth reading: what a good one looks like, line by line

An annotated example of a weekly sales digest built from computed tables: the header that states the period and the checks, ten movements each with the measure, the level, the change, the threshold and the citation, the three lists that follow, untouched, slipped and dormant, the line that says what did not move, and the footer with the definition version. What each element is for, and the version of the same digest that nobody reads.

16 Sept 20263 min read Data quality and reconciliation

Account hierarchy: parents, subsidiaries and the level you actually sell to

How to build and use an account hierarchy for sales analytics: the levels that exist in most customers, group, legal entity, site, department, the one level where the buying decision is made and every measure is computed, the levels beneath kept as dimensions, the dated parent mapping that survives acquisitions, the identity that revenue sums identically at every level, and the two mistakes that produce forty customers where there is one and one where there are forty.

16 Sept 20263 min read Board and management reporting · Wealth managers

Adviser concentration: how much of the book leaves if one adviser does

How a wealth management firm measures the share of assets and revenue attached to each adviser, the client-level dependency behind it, the succession list of advisers whose books have no second relationship, and why the figure is reported per office and per team, not just for the firm.

16 Sept 20262 min read Board and management reporting · Freight brokers and 3PLs

Carrier concentration per lane: when one carrier is the lane

How a freight broker or 3PL measures the share of loads on each lane carried by its top carrier from the load ledger, sets a stated threshold per lane volume band, finds the lanes where one carrier's exit would leave shippers uncovered, and pairs the concentration with the carrier's acceptance trend so the risk is seen before the tender is refused.

16 Sept 20262 min read Board and management reporting · Insurance brokers

Carrier concentration per line: how much of the book sits with one market

How a commercial insurance broker measures the share of premium placed with each carrier per line of business from the placement ledger, why a concentrated line is both a leverage point and a risk, the trend that shows a market quietly taking over a line, and the clients whose whole programme sits with one carrier.

16 Sept 20262 min read Wallet share and penetration · Industrial manufacturers

Catalogue fit per customer: how a manufacturer measures the product lines its customers could buy

A method for industrial and component manufacturers to measure, per customer, the product lines bought against the lines customers of that type buy, value the gap, keep direct and distributor channels from double counting, and reconcile to shipped revenue.

16 Sept 20263 min read