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An industry can be defined as any collection of businesses that share a common method of generating profits, such as the movie industry, the automobile industry, or the agriculture industry. It is also be defined as any area of economic production focused on manufacturing which involves large amounts of upfront capital investment before any profit can be realized. But often than not, an industry is defined by the product, object or material that it makes or by the service it provides such as the automotive industry or the material handling industry.

Industry in the last sense became a key sector of production during the Industrial Revolution. It upset the prevailing mercantile and feudal economies through advances in technology such as the development of steam engines, power looms, and advances in large scale steel and coal production. Railroads and steam-powered ships began speedily integrating previously separated world markets, enabling private companies to develop unheard of size and wealth. Following the Industrial Revolution, perhaps a third of world's economic output was derived from manufacturing industries.