Company Research
Directories | Profiles | Histories | Financials | Ratios & Rankings | Market Share | Stocks
News | Private | Local
Consider these factors early in your search:
Identify Companies Using Directories
Directories usually provide an address and phone numbers, executive names, industry codes, estimated sales, and number of employees. Some directories provide much more information -- biographies of officers, detailed financial information, stock reports, news, analyses of business strategies and recent developments, and more. Online directories will allow you to generate a list of companies based on various criteria.
 LexisNexis Academic (U.S., Int.)
 Dossier Create Company List.
ReferenceUSA (U.S.) (Quick Start Video Guide)
Use 'Guided Search' to select criteria.
 ThomasNet (U.S.)
http://www.thomasnet.com
ThomasGlobal (Int.)
http://www.thomasglobal.com
D&B Million Dollar Directory
 DH Hill Library, Learning Commons HF5035 .D83 ED
D&B Principal International Businesses
D.H. Hill Library, Learning Commons HF54 .U5 P74
The Libraries also has some very specialized directories such as the Thomas Food & Beverage Market Place, or the Medical Device Register. You can search the library catalog for others.
Sources of Company Profiles
LexisNexis Academic (U.S., Int.)
Business Source Premier (U.S., Int.)
Company Profiles
ReferenceUSA (U.S.)
CorporateInformation.com
http://www.corporateinformation.com
Company Histories
These sources may give you information about ownership, brands or products, mergers, board of directors, name changes and of course, the history of the company.
International Directory of Company Histories
Business Source Premier
Company Profiles section, older news articles
Sources of Company Financials
Business researchers and investors often use Financial Reports, Annual Reports or 10-K's. Financial Reports tend to be of two kinds: balance sheets and income statements. A balance sheet is a status report that describes the financial condition of a company at a fixed point in time. An income statement, or earnings report, shows how much money is made or lost during a given fiscal year or quarter. Financial statements are included in annual reports (sometimes abridged), S&P reports, and Value Line, among other sources.
Two most common types of corporate reports are the 10-K and the Annual Report. The 10-K is the detailed report submitted to the S.E.C. and is the most exhaustive source of current corporate information. The Annual Report is the report to the shareholders and is not an official filing. This is often the glossy snapshot: mostly positive, discussing plans and company's outlook, with financial data included.
I.D.E.A. (S.E.C.)
'The new EDGAR'
Thomson One Banker
(Full functionality requires IE browser)
LexisNexis Academic
Business tab Company Dossier
Standard & Poor's NetAdvantage
Company section (Guided Tour)
WRDS (Compustat)
Extract data for use in spreadsheets or statistical software
Compare Companies Using Ratios & Rankings
One of the ways to evaluate the performance of any given company is by comparing that company to other companies or its industry. To facilitate comparisons, ratios are often calculated using the numbers on financial statements. Financial ratios provide a means of standard of comparison. Many financial elements, such as inventory size, are validated by their relationship/ratio to other elements in a company's financial record, such as sales. Comparing these ratios to similar asset-sized companies or to the industry can result in a better understanding of the health of a company.
See Sources of Financial Ratios.
Find out how a particular company ranks against its competitors, or within a geographical area.
Thomson One Banker
(Full functionality requires IE browser)
Standard & Poor's NetAdvantage (Guided Tour)
Business Rankings Annual
DH Hill Library, Learning Commons HG4050 .B88
Available online through Gale Directory Library.
Note: This resource points to various sources of specific trade publications that produce various quantitative and qualitative rankings.
Market Share
Market share can be defined as the ratio of sales of a company's entire product line to the total sales of all related companies. Market share can also refer to the ratio of sales of a brand to the total sales of that product-type in a defined area (county, continent, etc.). Market share is usually presented as a percentage, although sometimes a raw number of sales or units is provided.
Market Share Reporter
Available online through Gale Directory Library.
Business Source Premier
Advanced Search limit results using a subject term "market share" .
LexisNexis Academic
Power Search limit results using index term "market share".
Stock Performance
Provides information to investors to understand and make decisions to determine company "health." Looking at stock resources is also sometimes a good place to find ratios and other financial information for business researchers. Of course, these companies must be publicly traded. Information sources of stock performance often include commentary by analysts.
See sources of Stock Performance information.
News: Recent Developments, Criticisms, Brief analysis
Use news sources to find out about current happenings, executive changes, management restructuring, new products, mergers and acquisitions, brands, etc. In addition to the resources listed below, you can take a look at newspaper databases available through the Libraries here.
Corporate Affiliations
(M&A, brands, parent and subsidiary relations)
Business Source Premier
(Trade and industry news sources)
LexisNexis Academic
(Limit to Business News Sources)
Wall Street Journal
(via Proquest)
Private Companies
Research on private companies (particularly small private companies) can be challenging, since private companies are not required to make available the same information required of public companies. It is typically necessary to search in a number of different sources for any available information, including the company's web site and local/regional news sources.
ReferenceUSA (Quick Start Video Guide)
Lexis Nexis Academic
Sources tab Hoover's
Corporate Affiliations
Standard & Poor's NetAdvantage (Guided Tour)
Regional Business News Database
Triangle Business Journal
http://triangle.bizjournals.com
Ward's Businss Directory of U.S. Private and Public Companies
DH Hill Library, 1st floor, East Wing, HG4057 .A449 ED.50
Local Companies
Regional Business News Database
ReferenceUSA (Quick Start Video Guide)
State of North Carolina, Department of Commerce
http://www.nccommerce.com
North Carolina Department of Secretary of State, Corporations Division
http://www.secretary.state.nc.us/corporations State of North Carolina, List of Agencies
http://www.ncgov.com/NCAgency.aspx
Raleigh Municipal Government
http://www.raleigh-nc.org
Raleigh Chamber of Commerce
http://www.raleighchamber.org
Triangle Business Journal
http://triangle.bizjournals.com
North Carolina Busienss Directory
DH Hill Library, Learning Commons HD9727 .N8 N692
Librarian Contact Information
Warning: ldap_bind() [function.ldap-bind]: Unable to bind to server: Can't contact LDAP server in /var/www/live/htdocs/courses/includes/contact.php on line 6
Warning: ldap_search() [function.ldap-search]: Search: Can't contact LDAP server in /var/www/live/htdocs/courses/includes/contact.php on line 9
Warning: ldap_sort() expects parameter 2 to be resource, boolean given in /var/www/live/htdocs/courses/includes/contact.php on line 10
Warning: ldap_get_entries(): supplied argument is not a valid ldap result resource in /var/www/live/htdocs/courses/includes/contact.php on line 11
No results.
|
