Industry Score

Industry Score places your performance next to a peer average drawn from organizations like yours, matched by industry and size. It answers a different question than your own scores: not how mature you are, but how you sit relative to others facing similar conditions.

How the comparison works

Forest builds a peer cohort from organizations in your industry and size band, then calculates an average that no single participant can be identified within. Your result is shown as a comparison against that average. The Forest Intelligence Service derives this the same way every time, so the comparison is stable and traceable.

The difference between your score and the peer average is a peer delta. Read it carefully. A peer delta is a performance difference, not a gap in your program. Being below the cohort average on a capability does not mean you have a deficiency, and being above it does not mean you are finished.

Why it matters

Peers give context that absolute scores cannot. If your maturity on a capability looks low but the entire cohort sits there too, the constraint may be structural to your industry rather than a failing of your team. If you lead the cohort on a capability that is not critical to you, that may signal overinvestment.

A peer delta tells you where you stand against others. A capability gap tells you where you stand against your own target. Treat them as separate signals.

The mechanics behind cohort construction are covered in benchmark methodology and peer comparison privacy.