LibGuides: MKT-343: Market Research Design: Company & Industry Research

Helpful Hint

Once you have identified companies and industries that are connected to your market through magazine articles, find out more about those companies and determine the industry trends and climate by using these databases.

Brand/Product Info

Reference Solutions (formally ReferenceUSA) This link opens in a new window
Access to information on more than 13 million United States companies, public and private. Records contain company name, address, city, state, ZIP code, phone number; number of employees; estimated sales volume; credit rating code; headquarters, subsidiary or branch; ticker symbol and stock exchange information; line of business description with SIC codes; year first appeared in the database; contact name; names, titles, and gender of corporate officers. Also provides SIC (Standard Industrial Classification) code and NAICS (North American Industry Classification System) code, size (sales or employees), type of company, and key contact. (aka Reference USA)

ReferenceUSA provides brand ownership information across 14 million companies. Datamonitor company profiles offer a SWOT analysis which often will highlight new products and or brand extensions.

Datamonitor Company Reports This link opens in a new window
Over 4400 company and Industry reports covering the U.S. and foreign countries.These reports provide a wealth of information, including a company overview, history, products & services analysis, SWOT analysis, current news, etc. These reports are available via EBSCO's Business Source Premier database.

Industry Research

To understand the big picture, learn about the environment in which companies operate.

ABI-Inform
The premier business periodical database. Use it to find articles on your company from BusinessWeek, Forbes, Newsweek, Wall Street Journal, etc.

Manufacturing & Distribution USA This link opens in a new window
(To view data: click on "Table of Contents" and browse that way). Presents statistics on numerous NAICS classifications in the manufacturing, wholesaling and retail industries. Covers input-output data by industrial sector as well as classifications of leading public and private corporations in each industry.

First Research Industry Profiles
From ABI/Inform, search "Within Publication", or Browse by Date.

Company Research

Use these library databases first to get started on your company research.

ABI-Inform
The premier business periodical database. Use it to find articles on your company from BusinessWeek, Forbes, Newsweek, Wall Street Journal, etc.

Business Source Premier (EBSCO) This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
Business Source Premier provides full text for nearly 8,350 scholarly business journals and other sources, including full text for more than 1,100 scholarly business publications. Coverage includes virtually all subject areas related to business. This database provides full text (PDF) for more than 350 of the top scholarly journals dating as far back as 1922. This database also includes Country Monitor, Industry Yearbook Reports, country reports from the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), Wall Street Words, and detailed company & industry profiles from Datamonitor. This database is updated on a daily basis via EBSCOhost.
Datamonitor Company Reports This link opens in a new window
Over 4400 company and Industry reports covering the U.S. and foreign countries.These reports provide a wealth of information, including a company overview, history, products & services analysis, SWOT analysis, current news, etc. These reports are available via EBSCO's Business Source Premier database.
Hoover's Company Records This link opens in a new window
This database contains proprietary information about more than 40,000 public and non-public companies and 225,000 key executives. Hoover's, widely recognized as a leader in company data, delivers in depth industry analyses, information on a company's location, summary financials, top competitors, top officers and more.
Mergent Online This link opens in a new window
Updated weekly. Provides immediate access to data on more than 10,000 NYSE, AMEX, Nasdaq and other select regional exchange companies. Coverage includes: history, business description, properties, subsidiaries, officers, directors, long-term debt, Moody's rating, capital stock, income statement, balance sheet, statements of cash flow, auditors, exchange and ticker symbol, number of employees, number of shareholders, market cap, address, telephone number, annual stock price ranges, etc.
NetLibrary (Ebsco eBook Collection) This link opens in a new window
The Ebsco eBook Collection offers a number of in-browser readable (or downloadable, via Adobe Digital Editions) ebooks with additional features such as a dictionary, index, and easy keyword searchability. Currently nearly 60,000 e-books are available covering most major subjects.
ProQuest Annual Reports This link opens in a new window
Full text of selected annual reports and 10Ks. 1986-present.
Reference Solutions (formally ReferenceUSA) This link opens in a new window
Access to information on more than 13 million United States companies, public and private. Records contain company name, address, city, state, ZIP code, phone number; number of employees; estimated sales volume; credit rating code; headquarters, subsidiary or branch; ticker symbol and stock exchange information; line of business description with SIC codes; year first appeared in the database; contact name; names, titles, and gender of corporate officers. Also provides SIC (Standard Industrial Classification) code and NAICS (North American Industry Classification System) code, size (sales or employees), type of company, and key contact. (aka Reference USA)

ThomasNet (Thomas Register of Manufacturers)
Best source for suppliers of products of all kinds. Over 155,000 company listings, 124,000 brand name listings, 60,000 product category listings and 5,500 online product catalogs.

Books on Companies at UAH

The Nokia Revolution by Dan Steinbock
Steinbock tells the story of Nokia, the 140-year-old Finnish company that has become a global powerhouse in mobile communications and a leader in the development of third-generation wireless services. The company's management obviously cooperated in this report, for we see how it thinks, how it listens to its markets, and how it has designed remarkable strategies, all of which have, in the last 10 years, made the company a case study in corporate success.
America's Corner Store: Walgreen's Prescription for Success by John U. Bacon
The fascinating story of a company that has been at the forefront of American business for over one hundred years
WetFeet Insider Guide to the Top 25 Consulting Firms
Consulting firms are traditionally among the largest employers of top MBA graduates and undergraduates, and it’s easy to see why. Consulting is a high-paying, high-profile field that offers recent grads the opportunity to assume a large degree of responsibility right out of school and quickly learn a great deal about the business world. It’s also a profession that will send you to the corners of the country and leave you there for weeks on end while you sort out tough questions for a client that’s paying your firm millions of dollars.
Starbucked : a double tall tale of caffeine, commerce, and culture by Taylor Clark
Call Number: HD9199 .U54 S733 2007
Part Fast Food Nation, part Bobos in Paradise, STARBUCKED combines investigative heft with witty cultural observation in telling the story of how the coffeehouse movement changed our everyday lives, from our evolving neighborhoods and workplaces to the ways we shop, socialize, and self-medicate.
At the creation : myth, reality, and the origin of the Harley-Davidson Motorcycle, 1901-1909 by Herbert Wagner
Call Number: HD9710.5 .U64 H3379 2003
ISBN: 0870203517
In this work, Herbert Wagner examines several long-standing puzzles and unanswered questions, and then, through the use of period documents and original photographs, recreates the actual events of Harley-Davidson's first years as they most plausibly occurred.
iCon : Steve Jobs, the greatest second act in the history of business by Jeffrey S. Young, William L. Simon
Call Number: QA76.2 .J63 Y677 2005
This unflinching and completely unauthorized portrait reveals how Steve Jobs staged the greatest second act in the history of business. Taking us back to the heady days of Silicon Valley in the 1970s, iCon shows how Jobs achieved his first great success, rising from an outcast high school electronics nerd to become the driving force behind Apple.
Inside out : Microsoft--in our own words. by Various
Call Number: HD9696.63 .U64 M5363 2000
Inside Out is meant to commemorate Microsoft's twenty-fifth anniversary. Filled with photographs and expressions of pride and team spirit, it is part school yearbook and part scrapbook. At the same time, though, the candor and enthusiasm of the nearly 1,000 employees who provided their reminiscences and shared their visions of the future for this collection shed light on Microsoft's corporate culture in a way no outside reporter or researcher ever could.
The search : how Google and its rivals rewrote the rules of business and transformed our culture by John Battelle
Call Number: HD9696.8 .U64 G663 2005
What does the world want? According to John Battelle, a company that answers that question-in all its shades of meaning-can unlock the most intractable riddles of business and arguably of human culture itself. And for the past few years, that's exactly what Google has been doing.

Below are books available either online or in the library on selected companies. Maybe your company is represented here, but if not, the library has many other books that profile companies.