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Company Analysis

Libguide can be used for MGT2220

What Does a Company Website Say?

The Company's website may provide a lot of pertinent information about the culture and the priorities of the leadership team of the company.   To find this information, scroll all the way down to the bottom of the Company's Homepage and browse through the tab that describes the company and ask yourself the following questions:

  • Look at the pictures of the company leaders, does it look like a diverse group of leaders even though the company says it values diversity?
  • Has the company ever landed in Fortune Magazines' "100 Best Places to Work": or received a similar award?
  • What are the company's values?  What types of charities or organizations do they donate to if they donate at all?
  • How long have key leaders been in place?    Does it appear that there is a lot of turnover in this company?
  • Does the company offer any kind of educational opportunities for their employees?  If the answer is yes, the company values employees and wants to retain them.

 

How can i make sense of an Annual Report?

The Annual Report contains valuable information about a company.   The Annual Reports tend to be very lengthy and I do not recommend reading the entire report; however, using the Ctrl F function in the PDF version allows for searching an annual report by keyword.   In the example below, I searched in the Annual Report for Microsoft for the keyword "Culture" and I was able to easily navigate to the 17 instances where the word was used.

 

Accessing a Company's Annual Report

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) requires that all publicly traded companies submit a 10-K or Annual Report to provide a good overview of the company's overall financial and operational performance.   The Annual Report details the company's mission statement, background and products.   Annual Reports can be accessed through the SEC at:

SEC.gov | EDGAR | Company Filings

Enter the name of the company and select 10-K for the Annual Report.   Once you retrieve the report, typing Ctrl F will enable one to search the entire report by keyword.

How to Search EDGAR for 10-K Reports

https://www.screencast.com/t/ZFDbj5Ny

May 17, 2023