WMX 4387 J.
Sheppard
This
is a short version of the
page developed by Mark
Bodnar, Bus. & Econ. Librarian ( mbodnar@sfu.ca ).
The original can be found at https://www.lib.sfu.ca/help/research-assistance/subject/business/bus478
Introduction:
Here are a few key
databases that may be useful for your assignments.
There are, of
course, many other databases, and no single resource is perfect.
Explore further if
the first sources don't have what you need.
NEWS:
To analyse a
firm's strategic position and recommend adjustments, you must also
check
news sources for a sense of what is changing today and in the near
future.
Factiva allows
you to search in thousands of news publications at once,
including
many business-focused ones such as the Wall
Street Journal.
Business Source Complete (BSC).
Thousands of business journals, industry magazines,
and industry &
market reports. BSC also includes company profiles from sources such as
Marketline
and Medtrack for many of the world's largest
companies.
Canadian
Newsstream. The full text of most major and
local-market Canadian newspapers.
Newspapers from
the hometown of the headquarters of a company can often be a great
place to get
unusual and hard-to-find company information.
CBCA Fulltext Business. CBCA covers Canadian popular and business magazines,
as well as some
newspapers.
Regional Business News. Full-text from many regional business publications in the US.
May be useful if
the company you are researching is relatively small and is based in the U.S.A.
Also useful if you
want news from the city where the headquarters of a company is located.
Academic
Search Premier
Covers both popular magazines (e.g., Time & Newsweek) and academic journals
in most subject areas.
Company information:
Reports and directories
Below are a small sample of some commonly used company
reports & directories.
All regions
Nexis Uni
Use the Menu option in the top corner of the database's homepage to choose Company
Dossier. Descriptive information (competitors, products, etc.) on about 8000
companies, plus much deeper information on the largest 1000
companies: Business Strategy, Financial and Operational Data, SWOT
Analysis, Value Chain Analysis, etc.
Mergent Intellect. Based on data from Dun &
Bradstreet®, Mergent Intellect contains
information
on over 265
million global companies, of which 165 million are active and the vast majority
are
privately
held. The amount of information available on each firm varies, but for
many of the larger
firms covered, you
can also retrieve lists of key competitors, surrounding
companies, detailed
global family
trees with lists of subsidiaries, and contact information for over 100 million
executives.
Canada
Canadian
Importers Database provides lists of the companies (with geographical
locations) importing
goods into Canada.
These data are compiled from customs documentation filled out by importers.
ThomasNet.
Information on over 500,000 suppliers (manufacturers and distributors) and more
than
six
million products. (Covers both USA and Canada.)
The Canadian
business directories has more
suggestions.
Also see Company
Histories below for a few places to start searching for historical company
information.
Many major
financial sources are listed in the Library's Annual
reports and Ratio
analysis research guides.
Canada
SEDAR. The system used for electronically
filing info. with the Canadian securities regulatory
authorities
(since 1997).
Includes annual reports, interim financial statements, press releases and
prospectuses.
Similar to the
Edgar Online service available for companies traded in the US (described
below).
United
States
EDGAR Database.
The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) database of corporate
filings.
Contains annual
reports, press releases, and other public documents for most public companies
in the US.
Note that annual
reports are "10-K" forms for the SEC.
Private
companies
Forbes Largest
Private Companies list -- Covers the largest U.S. private companies
(2019 / 2017 / 2016 / 2015
| 2014
/ 2013
/ 2012)
BC Business
-- Top 100 Companies (includes some private
firms)
Company histories
International
Directory of Company Histories
Covers thousands of companies, each of which is a leader in their industry
or geographic area.
Industry overviews:
Understanding the industrial context of a
company – the major competitors, demand drivers, barriers to
entry, degree of consolidation, etc. – is important if
you want to understand and affect the position of a
company within that industry.
IBISWorld Industry Reports has
reports on a broad range of industries in Canada, the USA, and
China. For
example: Commercial Banking in the US. Be sure to also
explore the Canada and
US Business Environment Profiles in
IBISWorld. These profiles provide insight into the key
drivers that have
a material affect on the performance of many industries. Topics covered
range from
exchange rates to obesity to weather conditions.
For additional
sources of this sort, see Mark
Bodnar’s research guide to Industry Surveys.
Market analysis & data:
Detailed information on the sales of specific products is
very valuable to companies.
As a result, it's often either not published, or only
available for a high price.
Fortunately, some market research firms sell their data and
analysis to academic institutions at a
discounted price (see below), but you should still expect to
have to work with broader or related
information
in many cases: even the best marketing databases don't cover every topic.
Passport for information on the
markets of FMCGs (fast moving consumer goods) & consumer
services in many
countries. Passport includes data on market sizes, brand shares, distribution
methods & more. Also search for reports
(analysis) on key consumer trends & company strategies.
For more market
data/analysis sources, try Mark Bodnar’s Market Research guide and his
International Market Research guides.
Miscellaneous:
If you are having trouble filling some of your information
gaps, try Statista,
a portal
that integrates statistics from thousands of sources. You can
think of Statista as
Google focused
on useful statistics and without the many irrelevant hits and ads!
Like Google, of Statista can be great at unearthing odd statsyou can't find elsewhere.
For instance, if you were searching for market size data for
toasters, the closest our
Passport database would provide is "small kitchen
appliances," but Statista finds
toaster sales data in multiple countries and
displays it in pre-formatted charts.
If you follow Statista's links to the original sources
they can offer additional useful info.
For example, this Statista chart on toaster sales in
the US came from page 48 of
this industry magazine. Statista can often
help quantify trends (e.g., fintech) or gather
deep data on firm-specific sales (e.g., Under Armour) or product types (e.g., sportswear).
Help:
You are not alone!
Here's a process to follow if you get stuck:
1. Re-read
your assignment to be sure you understand your instructor's expectations.
2. Refresh
your understanding of this sort of secondary research by watching this short
video: Secondary Research for Business Decisions: Foundations for
Estimates
3. Check
for Help functions in each database.
4. Use
our AskAway chat
reference service to ask a librarian questions about research
resources and
strategies.
5. Try
emailing me ( sheppard@sfu.ca ) or Mark
Bodnar (Business & Economics Librarian)
at mbodnar@sfu.ca with details on what you are
hoping to find and where you've been
searching, and he
or I may be able to suggest alternative ways to approach the problem.
This approach may
involve a meeting (online), so may take a few days to arrange.
Be sure to try the
steps above first.
I
hope these tips help. Good luck with your research!