CMU LibGuides: Business: 70-101: Business Strategy Fundamentals: Research

Go Beyond Google

Knowledge holds the key to your future.

Company Financials

D&B Hoovers

Covers over 188 million global, public and private firms, with company and industry overviews, SWOT, financials, analyst reports, and more - gets a lot of information quickly. NOTE: Only 600,000 downloads per yer for entire campus. Please be judicious when downloading!
S&P Capital IQ
n-depth financial/valuation data resource, including information on equities, credit ratings, transactions, and more. Use hundreds of data points to generate lists of companies, markets, executives. Includes an Excel plug-in for data analysis. Create an account using your CMU email address by following these directions.

SEC database
all US public companies and some foreign ones must file their financial reports here; this is the most direct source.
Company Website
look for the "investor relations" section.

Research Your Company

Hoover's (Now D&B Hoovers)
includes US and international companies; brief company description, leadership, history, financials, products, SWOT and analyst reports, etc.
MarketLine (previously Datamonitor)
view your company and then see the sections on the left - particularly the SWOT analysis and Financial Deals
Value Line Investment Survey

Stock reports: financial performance, projections, rankings, analyst consensus, beta, key ratios, and commentary; short industry surveys. A classic source.
CB Insights
A comprehensive global database of private companies and investors activities. Contains advanced searches for private companies, investors, and deals information (especially PE and VC). Use for startups and privates!.

More on our company research guide.

Research Business News

Best place to find company innovations, new product announcements, and international business news.

Business Source Premier

Academic and industry periodicals in all business disciplines. Also industry, company, and country reports.
ABI/INFORM Collection
Articles from industry and scholarly sources, periodicals, reports and dissertations, on business, management, corporate strategy, and the competitive landscape.

Research Your Industry

IBISWorld
Industry market research reports with analysis, data, conditions, segmentation, market share, primary companies, and outlook in the US, UK, China, US States, and globally.
MarketLine (previously Datamonitor)
international coverage - substantial industry reports on hundreds of specific industries

More on our industry research guide

Research Your Company's Strategy and Risk Factors

Look up the company's latest 10-K (either on the company's website's Investor Relations section, or on the SEC database. Here you'll want to look at these sections: "Risk Factors" and "Management's Discussion".

Use ABI-INFORM database and search using keywords, i.e. "Microsoft and strategy".

Research Company/Industry Data & Stats

Statista
Market, industry, company, and demographic statistics, data-centered reports and dossiers, fully downloadable, various formats, international, easy-to-use.