LibGuides: Business: 45-891: Presenting Competitively: Start

This Guide

will help you find background on business issues to support the presentations in this class and elsewhere.

Financial Data

Mergent Online This link opens in a new window
15 years of financial data can be displayed and downloaded conveniently. US and international companies. Also SEC filings (use EDGAR tab) and print annual reports for last 10 years (use Annual Reports tab) from company profile.

SEC database
all US public companies and some foreign ones must file their financial reports here; this is the most direct source.

BizMiner This link opens in a new window
INDUSTRY LEVEL DATA: detailed financial reports on thousands of lines of business.

What are they saying?

Mergent Online Analyst Reports This link opens in a new window
Important reports on companies and industries from Wall Street analysts and many major investment banks. Use the drop down menu to search different fields and use the "add to criteria" button to search more than one field at a time.

Industry Overviews

Find market size, industry leaders, statistics, current status, future trends, histories and profiles of the industries here. If you look up the NAICS/SIC codes (see below left) for your industry first, this will be a bit easier.

IBISWorld This link opens in a new window
Industry market research reports with analysis, data, conditions, segmentation, market share, primary companies, and outlook in the US, UK, China, US States, and globally.

Industry Wizard Tool: Located under "Expert Tools" allows users to quickly search, query, and save industry ratios, data, and statistics from all IBISWorld reports for benchmarking purposes, strategies, etc. Data is downloadable.
MarketLine (previously Datamonitor) This link opens in a new window
in-depth profiles of thousands of specific industries in many countries. Click on "Databases" for market data analytics on consumer products, and extensive economic/demographic data on hundreds of countries.
Frost & Sullivan This link opens in a new window
Market reports and analysis on technology aspects of industries. Industries include: aerospace & defense, automotive, chemicals, consumer products, electronics, healthcare, and more. Reports are now available to download as PDFs.

Use of this resource is only for academic research purposes .

More in industry research guide

Market share

Market Share Reporter - use any keyword for your industry or company. Also use:

Statista This link opens in a new window
Add the company or industry name to the topic - i.e. "PepsiCo market share" - to find the data, easy to download and use.
IBISWorld This link opens in a new window
reports contain market share data in their "Key Competitors" sections

Company profiles

ReferenceUSA (now Data Axle) This link opens in a new window
(2nd database on right side) - covers major global firms, with financials, news, SWOT analyses, analyst reports, and more - gets a lot of information quickly. Use "Global Business Browser" for more information on top companies only; "Global Express" for less info., many more companies.
Hoover's (Now D&B Hoovers) This link opens in a new window
the quickest - has overviews, key financial figures and lists of products and competitors in one easy-to-locate source. No downloading.
MarketLine (previously Datamonitor) This link opens in a new window
has detailed reports on public and private companies, internationally, including background, analysis and forecasts, and featuring SWOT analyses.

More in company research guide

News Sources

Articles in newspapers, magazines, and trade journals are rich in data, analytical, and up-to-the-minute.

Business Source Premier This link opens in a new window
academic journals, trade journals, and business magazines; industry reports, company profiles, and country economic reports. Special feature: Harvard Business Review online.
ABI/INFORM Collection This link opens in a new window
newspapers, trade publications, journals - only source for complete Wall Street Journal and New York Times.
LexisNexis Academic (now Nexis Uni) This link opens in a new window
has the most wide-ranging international, national and local news and trade publications, plus biographical background on individuals and legal cases.