Industry and Company Information
Finding Industry and Company Information
Use the following resources for finding information on your industry, competitors, and competing products. You'll need this kind of information for describing your new business venture, as well as for writing your marketing plan.
- NAICSThe North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) is the standard used by Federal statistical agencies in classifying business establishments for the purpose of collecting, analyzing, and publishing statistical data related to the U.S. business economy.
Tutorial: Finding NAICS Codes
- ABI/INFORM This link opens in a new window
Includes international coverage and provides researchers a complete picture of companies and business trends around the world.
- Business Insights: Essentials (formerly Business & Company Resource Center) This link opens in a new window
A fully integrated resource bringing together company profiles, brand information, rankings, investment reports, company histories and chronologies. You can also search industry descriptions and for topics in over 4,000 business, economics and technology journals. - Business Source Complete (via EBSCOhost) This link opens in a new window
Leading scholarly business database with over 1,300 publications, including peer-reviewed journals. Covers all business disciplines, including marketing, management, accounting, finance, and economics. Also includes financial data, company profiles, industry reports, market research reports, SWOT analyses, and more.
- Mergent Online This link opens in a new windowProvides access to a wide range of financial and business information, including U.S. and international company data, industry reports, global company financials, executive profiles, equity research reports, records from private companies, annual reports, risk ratings and information, and global equity pricing data. Offers the ability to build custom financial reports.
- PrivCo This link opens in a new window
The PrivCo database presents business and financial data on major privately-held companies, including family owned, private equity owned, venture backed, and international unlisted companies. PrivCo covers over 500,000 companies, providing information on finances, M&A and funding activity, ownership structure, and more. PrivCo also has data on more than 18,000 investors.
Click the green "Direct Access" button to access PrivCo without making an account. - ValueLine Investment Survey Reports This link opens in a new windowProvides the ability to search by Company Name, Stock Ticker or Industry for the most recent reports, analyst commentaries and rankings on the 1,700 stocks covered by the Value Line Investment Survey.
The following databases are particularly useful for consumer and business information in the U.S. and around the world:
- Statista This link opens in a new window
One of the world's largest statistics portals with data from over 18,000 sources. Provides access to 1 million statistics. Also contains information on industries, countries, digital markets, and other topics, as well as infographics.
Research Tips Doc
This Google Doc includes some Research Tips you may find useful.
Research Practice guide
Use this set of questions to explore some of the databases you'll find useful for your project.
Download a copy here.
Intro to Useful Resources
This Slides presentation suggests ways to search in resources.