An Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) describes the kind of company that gets the most value from what you sell, and gives you the most value back. Without one, prospecting drifts. Reps chase whoever answers the phone, and marketing targets "SMEs in Singapore".
In Singapore, you have a useful tool for building an ICP that most markets lack: every company declares its business activity using a standard code. This guide shows you how to use it.
What is SSIC?
The Singapore Standard Industrial Classification (SSIC) is the national system for classifying economic activities. It's maintained by the Department of Statistics, and the current edition is SSIC 2020.
When a company registers with ACRA, it declares a primary activity and optionally a secondary activity, each as an SSIC code. That gives you a consistent, official label for what almost every company says it does.
SSIC is a hierarchy. Each level gets more specific:
| Level | Format | What it looks like |
|---|---|---|
| Section | Letter | Broad sector, such as Manufacturing or Transportation and Storage |
| Division | 2 digits | A major industry within the sector |
| Group | 3 digits | A narrower slice of the division |
| Class | 4 digits | A specific type of activity |
| Sub-class | 5 digits | The full code a company registers, such as 62021, IT consultancy |
There are 21 sections at the top, and many hundreds of five-digit codes at the bottom.
Step 1: Start with your best customers, not your assumptions
Don't design your ICP from a whiteboard. Start from evidence.
List your ten to twenty best customers. "Best" means they pay on time, stayed longest, needed the least support and would refer you. For each one, note:
- their primary SSIC code and description
- headcount
- year of incorporation
- location
- who bought, and who signed
You can find SSIC codes on the company's ACRA profile, or in the company record on SG Best Leads.
Step 2: Find the pattern, at the right level
Look for what your best customers have in common. You'll usually find they cluster in two or three divisions.
The trick is choosing the right level of the hierarchy:
- Too broad. A whole section like Wholesale and Retail Trade mixes corner shops with regional distributors. Your list will be huge and mostly wrong.
- Too narrow. Picking only the exact five-digit codes your customers have misses near-identical companies that registered a slightly different code.
- About right. Usually the division or group level, plus a handful of specific adjacent codes you've confirmed.
Step 3: Layer on firmographics
Industry alone isn't an ICP. Add the filters that separate a good fit from a poor one:
- Headcount. Too small and they can't afford you. Too large and they have a procurement process you can't navigate yet.
- Company age. Newer companies are often more open to new tools. Established ones have bigger budgets and harder habits.
- Location. Useful if you deliver on site or run field sales. Singapore is small, but region still matters for logistics-heavy businesses.
Step 4: Add the people layer
An ICP describes companies. A buyer persona describes the people inside them. You need both to build a list.
For each ICP, decide:
- The department that owns the problem, such as HR, Finance or Operations
- The seniority that can say yes. In a 30-person firm that's often the owner. In a 300-person firm it's a head of department.
- Who else gets involved, such as Finance approving the spend
Step 5: Write it down
Put your ICP on one page so the whole team uses the same definition.
| Field | Example (illustrative) |
|---|---|
| Industries | Food and beverage services, retail trade, and warehousing and logistics |
| Headcount | 11 to 200 employees |
| Company age | Incorporated at least 3 years ago |
| Region | Anywhere in Singapore |
| Buyer | Head of HR or Finance Manager, or the owner in firms under 30 staff |
| Why they buy | Shift-based rosters make payroll slow and error-prone |
| Disqualifiers | Already on an enterprise HR suite, or no shift workers |
This example describes a hypothetical payroll software vendor. Yours will be different.
Step 6: Test and refine
An ICP is a hypothesis. Test it before you commit a quarter to it.
- Count the market. Apply your filters and see how many companies match. Too few and you'll run out of prospects. Too many and your ICP is too loose.
- Sample it. Open twenty matching companies at random and ask whether you'd actually want each one as a customer. If fewer than two-thirds are a yes, tighten the filters.
- Run a pilot. Call or email a small batch and compare meeting rates against your usual lists.
- Review it quarterly. Your best customers will change as your product does.
Watch out for these pitfalls
- Declared activity can be generic or out of date. Some companies register a broad catch-all code, such as general management consultancy, and never update it when the business changes. Always sample-check.
- Check secondary activities too. A company's primary code may say wholesale while its secondary code shows it also runs retail outlets.
- Don't ignore adjacent codes. Your best customer's exact code may have close neighbours worth including.
- Don't confuse size with fit. A bigger company is not automatically a better customer.
Building your ICP list in SG Best Leads
Our industry filter follows SSIC sections. Combine it with headcount bands, region and incorporation date to shape the company list, then filter people by seniority and department to reach your buyer.
Searching is free. Check the total count, sample the results, refine your filters, and only unlock the contacts that match.