The main themes addressed are:
- investments: business leaders are asked about the amounts of their investments over the last 3 years;
- their motivation;
- the factors influencing investment decisions;
- their production capacities.

The survey covers manufacturing industry and extraction industries; divisions 08 to 33 of French Nomenclature of Activities (NAF Rev. 2)  (except 08.92Z, 09.10Z, 12, 19.10Z, 30.40Z).

The annual investment growth rate is a leading macroeconomic indicator based on quantitative data: annual investment amounts for three consecutive years. These amounts make it possible to calculate eight successive estimates of the annual growth rate of investment in value between years N-1 and N. For each survey, the successive estimates obtained are published. The latter's chronicle shows how industrialists revise their investment expectations from one survey to another.
The investment revision indicator is defined so that the more companies increase their investment amounts, the higher its value. Conversely, the more companies reduce their investment amounts, the lower their value. It is calculated from the amounts indicated by the companies that responded to the last two surveys, weighted by their turnover. The indicator is of zero mean and standard deviation 1: a positive value indicates that firms have increased their investment more than usual. It is seasonally adjusted.

The unit interviewed is the company.

Some data have been available from 1963 to july 2021.