The main areas of distribution are the company's sector of activity and the size of the company.

The enterprises belong to divisions 05 to 81 of NACE Rev. 2 (with the exception of 75: Veterinarians).

Within Section K of NACE Rev2 (Divisions 64, 65 and 66), mutual banks (part of 64.19Z) and mutual insurance companies (part of 65.12Z) are treated separately:
- other monetary intermediaries" (64.19Z) whose legal category (CJ) is 5195, 6595, 6596 or starting with 29 are excluded;
- those whose CJ starts with 51 or 65 and whose CJ is not 5195, 6595 or 6596 are only integrated from 50 or more employees;
- the other mutual insurance companies remain in the sampling frame.

For mutual insurance companies, it is necessary to refer to the lists made available by ACAM (Autorité de contrôle des assurances et des mutuelles):
- Book III companies are declared out of scope;
- Book I and II companies are only in the field if their workforce is greater than or equal to 50 and if their CJ is worth one of the following codes (8210, 8290 or 9220, i.e. "Mutual", "Other mutualist organisation" and "Declared Association");
- the other mutual insurance companies remain in the sampling frame.

The main topics covered in the CIS2016 survey are as follows:
- Presence of innovation by type of innovation (products, processes, organisational, marketing)
- Turnover share from product or service innovations introduced between 2014 and 2016
- Expenditure associated with product and process innovation activities
- Public funding (European and national)
- Forms of cooperation for the development of innovations
- Intellectual property rights (patent filing, design registration etc.)
- Non-innovative companies: factors explaining the lack of innovation over the 2014-2016 period
- Logistics innovations

The interrogation unit is the legal unit (UL), identified by its SIREN number, with the exception of 6 units which are interrogated in profiled companies (EP).

The legal units surveyed will be units located in France (metropolitan France and the French overseas departments, including Mayotte), active as of 31/12/2016 and having had at least 6 months of activity, merchants, operators with 10 or more employees (in FTEs) excluding the Syndicat Intercommunal à Vocation Unique (SIVU) (legal category 7353).

2014 to 2016 depending on the questions