Company Analysis

A database for company information provides information on a company's financials, products, and leadership structure.

A database for industry information will provide an overview of an industry that includes a market forecast as well as a list of top competitors.   If you are analyzing a company, it is often good to look at an industry report to see whether your company is better or worse than the industry average.   Please review the tutorial under each section for additional searching tips.

Environmental Scan, an examination of the external and internal environments:

• External environment: political/legal/regulatory, economic, socio-cultural, technology, environment (PEST or PESTEL Analysis).
• Industry environment: new entrants, suppliers, buyers, product substitutes, intensity of rivalry, the position of the firm in the industry (Porter's Five Forces Analysis). 
• Firm-level: strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats (SWOT Analysis). 

Consider industry-specific forces: e.g., for the automobile industry, factors like gas price, new technologies, environmental concerns, changes in consumer preferences, infrastructures, industry/government incentives, global/foreign competitions, etc..

Consider broader forces: economy and disposable income, social media, mobile technology, consumer health, globalization, population change (e.g., immigration, aging), etc..

Recommended sources: most databases featuring company profiles or industry profiles will have some information on environmental factors and their impact on the company or industry. Industry association websites should have some free information about trends and developments. In addition, follow current events in the news and search for current articles related to the company or industry. Synthesize the information and use your own words.

• Last Updated: Dec 1

• ABI/INFORM Collection 

  ProQuest’s Business Collection.
  Journals, magazines, news, and reports in areas of business, international business, management, marketing, human resources, human relations, social responsibility, business ethics, and company or industry research. Includes company reports and SWOT analysis.

• Business Insights 

  Company and industry profiles, including a SWOT analysis for many public companies.
  Popular companies: Amazon, Walmart, Starbucks, Costco, Apple.

• Business Market Research Collection 

  This collection includes Hoover’s Company Profiles for thousands of public and non-public companies.

• Nexis Uni 

  Extensive news, business, and legal sources. Includes federal and state cases and statutes, and millions of company profiles, reports and SWOT analyses.

• Statista 

  Find statistics, reports, outlooks, company data, consumer survey results, and industry studies from over 22500 sources on over 60000 topics.

• ProQuest Central 

            Search and access every full-text resource available through ProQuest’s entire collection of 175 different databases,

• IBISWorld 

  Search by major industry area and explore key statistics, trends, financials, competitors, and external factors. Both US and global reports.

• Plunkett's Research: Industry statistics 

  Industry profiles, statistics, data, and market research trend article

If you are looking for specific information, you may have to try a number of databases and keyword search strategies.   It is best to jot down the keywords that you use so that you can use them in different combinations using the advanced search feature in various databases.

For example, you could try the following strategy using the advanced search in Proquest Central
 

"company X"

AND  management or leadership or CEO or culture