Research Guides

Researching Companies - Key Resources

Competitive Intelligence is the acquisition of information about competitors, through public and ethical means, that is used to gain and maintain a competitive edge.

You can use these analytic skills to help you find information about any business of interest. Here is a list of some places to start:

Hoover's Online http://www.mir.devry.edu/data.html
This site will provide you with a company's summary, quarterly financials, and profiles.

MSN Money http://moneycentral.msn.com/investor/research/welcome.asp
Here you'll get just about everything you'll need, from stock prices to the company's culture.

Wall Street Journal http://wsj.com
Come here if the company you are researching has been in the news recently, or if you just want to see how the company is performing financially. Full text articles are restricted to paid subscriber's, Please see Proquest database for full text articles from 1984 to present.

Fortune http://www.fortune.com/
This web site of a leading business magazine will provide you with company profiles as well as information on the top 500 companies, 100 fastest growing companies, and so on.

Forbes http://www.forbes.com/
The site of another leading business magazine provides a pull down menu where you can search specific types of businesses, such as manufacturing, technology, commerce and more.

Some books to look through:

Competitive Intelligence by Larry Kahaner
(HD 38.7 .K339 1996)
About competitive intelligence, shows you how to implement all the procedures the "pros" do, such as how to profile competitors, how to use war-gaming, word pattern analysis and handwriting analysis to gain the edge.

Millennium Intelligence by Jerry P. Miller
(HD 38.7 .M55 2000)
A group of professionals tell you how to do it right, it also contain some useful sites to help you in your search to locate company information.

Notable Corporate Chronologies Edited by Julie A. Mitchell
Reference Section (HG 4009 .N68 2001)
Important events in company histories.

Encyclopedia of Business Information Sources Edited by James Woy
Reference Section (Z 5351 .E48 2002)
Contains lists of sites, and other books you can use to find the information you need.

Other library databases to consider:

Lexis Nexis Academic http://www.mir.devry.edu/data.html

EbscoHost http://www.mir.devry.edu/data.html

Wall Street Journal http://wsj.com
Full-text coverage from 1986 to present