Informatics professional services price indexes (IPSPI)

Detailed information for 2025

The informatics professional services price indexes measure annual price changes for various informatics services such as data processing and hosting; software and software licensing; computer systems design; and custom software design services.

• Questionnaire(s) and reporting guide(s)
• Description
• Data sources and methodology

Description

The informatics professional services price indexes measure annual price changes for various informatics services such as data processing and hosting; software and software licensing; computer systems design; and custom software design services . These price indexes are useful indicators of economic activity in the informatics services industry and can also prove helpful as a supplementary tool for performance evaluation, cost monitoring, contract assessment and benchmark comparisons. In addition, the indexes are used by the Canadian System of Macroeconomic Accounts (CSMA) to arrive at estimates of real value added for the industry and to measure changes in productivity in this industry.

Statistical activity

These indexes are a part of the Services Producer Price Index program (SPPI) at Statistics Canada.

The SPPI program develops and produces price indexes for a wide range of business service categories. This initiative fills an important data gap in the area of economic statistics and has resulted in a more comprehensive set of service price indexes. It also allows Statistics Canada to produce more accurate estimates of real value added of the Gross Domestic Product and changes in productivity.

Reference period: The time period for which the IPSPI equals 100; currently this is the year 2015.

Collection period: Collection normally begins in late April of the year following the reference period and runs until August of the same year.

Subjects

• Business, consumer and property services
• Prices and price indexes
• Professional, scientific and technical services
• Service price indexes

Data sources and methodology

Target population

The target population consists of all business establishments in Canada that engage in the provision and sale of informatics professional services.

Observed population:

This consists of all business establishments in Canada that are classified on Statistics Canada's Business Register (BR) to one of the following three (NAICS) industries:

NAICS 518210 - Data processing, hosting, and related services

NAICS 51321 - Software publishers

NAICS 54151 - Computer systems design and related services

The observed population excludes businesses with an annual revenue less than CAN$200,000 in each of the three NAICS industries listed above.

Differences between the target and observed populations arise mainly due to issues of classification on Statistics Canada's Business Register. For example, a Canadian business that has 10% of its sales revenue classified to NAICS 518210 would be considered part of this survey's target population, but according to the conventions adopted by Statistic Canada's Business Register, would not be classified to this NAICS industry since a majority of its sales revenues are not attributable to this industry. In this instance, this establishment would be part of this survey's target population, but not part of the observed population.

• Additional documentation

Instrument design

The questionnaire used for the informatics professional services price indexes was developed by subject-matter experts at Statistics Canada.

Sampling

This is a sample survey with a cross-sectional design and a longitudinal follow-up.

Sampling Unit

Establishment

Definition: the establishment is the unit at which all accounting data required to measure production are available. It is defined as the most homogeneous unit of production for which the business maintains accounting records from which it is possible to assemble all the data elements required to compile the full structure of the gross value of production (total sales of shipments, and inventories), the cost of materials and services, and labour and capital used in production.

Sampling and Sub-sampling

The target total number of establishments selected is 1000.

The number of establishments sampled in each industry is proportional to the size of the industry on the survey frame (in terms of annual revenue).

Data sources

Responding to this survey is mandatory.

Data are collected directly from survey respondents.

Following sample selection, new survey participants (respondents) are introduced to the survey through telephone interviews. During this initial phase of data collection, respondents are guided through the process of selecting representative products for which prices will be reported in subsequent survey cycles (i.e. longitudinally). This process may span several collection cycles until respondents become familiar with the survey.

After the initialization phase, data are collected on an ongoing, annual basis via electronic questionnaire (EQ).

Information about the time it takes respondents to complete the survey questionnaire is collected and monitored closely. Currently, it takes respondents an average of 100 minutes to complete the survey.

View the Questionnaire(s) and reporting guide(s) .