Industry:
Who are the leaders in this industry?
Who specializes in this industry?
Why are they successful?
Where is this kind of industry located?
Competitors
Who are the competitors?
How do they reach their customers?
What do they do really well?
What don’t they do well?
“Logo Design” is only a small part of the graphic design business. There are millions of people doing this kind of thing, it’s not like it’s dominated by a few big players.
There are 1 or 2 companies that like to think they are the leaders. They even use terms like “The worlds largest logo design studio” or “The worlds number 1 logo design company”. Avoid these like the plague. There is no way on earth to tell who is the biggest or the best unless they publish fully audited accounts and everyone else does the same thing so these statements are just massaging large egos.
There are many companies specializing in logo design. If you search on Yahoo or Google for “logo design” you will be presented with millions of results.
There is no way to tell who is successful unless you have access to their accounts. They may outwardly look successful but they could be backed by a large organization and actually making a loss in reality.
If this question is a bait to advertise the latest and greatest logo design company then let’s see them all flock here to say how great they all are.
My own company “The Logo Company” has a varied customer base including the US Government, law and order organizations, US military, US Forestry, and thousands of small to medium sized businesses. The logo company has been in business for 10 years and has always shown a healthy profit. With a turnover in excess of several millions of dollars and a in-house staff of nearly 100, The Logo Company could quite easily claim to be one of the industry leaders. However, without knowing enough about all the competitors and the state of their books it would be a groundless claim. Rather than massaging my ego with over inflated statements, I prefer to just take a completely honest approach to business.
I noticed that recently there is the design contest trend too.
There are some logo contest sites, I found a good one http://www.logoarena.com