Getting Started

Before beginning your research, spend some time thinking about the topic at hand and how to develop a search strategy. Consider the following:

• Do you know the industry classification for the company you will be researching?
• Is the company private, public or non-profit?
• Is the company local?
• Do you need only basic financial information (for example, sales in the past year) or more detailed data?
• Do you need descriptions of company products, opinions about the company's performance or business strategy - in short, information likely to be found in trade magazines?

Finding General or Background Information About a Company

Finding background information about a company starts with researching an industry. It is always useful to get the big picture first because the company you research coexists and competes with other companies in the same or related areas of business. After consulting the Industry Research Guide, move on to looking for the company information.

In Bowman Library, background information about companies is mostly available online. Many company directories, such as Ward’s Business Directory or Hoover’s Billion Dollar Directory as well as listings of company profiles, have been incorporated into business information databases. Consider the following resources:

• Business and Company Resource Center
• Hoover’s
• Standard and Poor's NetAdvantage

Search ROSIE by keywords describing the company or industry you are researching. Keep in mind that your chances of finding a book about a given company are fair only if the company (or one of its aspects) is notable, notorious or big.

Finding Financial Data About a Company

Keep two things in mind when searching the Bowman research databases for financial data:

• There will be little information available about private or not-for-profit companies (as opposed to publicly traded companies).
• SEC (Security and Exchange Commission) 10-k disclosures (reports) constitute foundation for companies' annual reports to their shareholders.

  Try the following resources:

• Hoover’s
  Search by the company name, then select "Financials" from the side menu. Multiple subcategories will appear for publicly traded companies. You may also select "SEC Filings" and then, just below the "Form Type" column heading, click on "Re-Sort Ascending" to bring up all the 10-k reports available.

• Business and Company Resource Center
  Search by company name, then select "Financials" from the top tabs menu.

• Value Line Investment Survey

• EDGAR, the SEC’s online database of financial data about publicly traded companies. Follow the "Company Filings" link and limit your search to "10-k" reports.

• LexisNexis Academic
  Limit your search ("Search within") to "SEC Filings."

• GuideStar has information about not-for-profit companies, including IRS forms 990 and an online tutorial about it; free registration required.

• Foundation Center has reports and statistical information, as well as directory of foundations (featuring IRS form(s) 990 and a guide to understanding it).
  

Finding Market Share Information

You need two sets of data to find out a company's market share: your company production and the industry output. Note that specific information is needed:

• defined geographic area (for example, global or national market)
• defined product or service (for example, publishing industry vs. software publishers; food and beverage stores vs. supermarkets)
• defined unit of measurement (for example, sales, shipments, production in terms of value or quantity). Sometimes the unit of measurement is specific to the given industry, like RPMs or "revenue passenger miles" for airlines.

  Note also that sometimes the market share is referred to as “demand” for the company/industry products or services, where demand represents customers’ willingness to buy or the other side of selling.

Company Production

Information about sales or production can be found in the company (consolidated) balance sheet which is an essential part of the company disclosure. Look in an Annual Report or SEC’s 10-k (see the previous section of this guide for sources).

Industry Output

You can find information about industry output in:

• Statistical Abstracts of the United States
• Standard and Poor’s Industry Surveys
• State of the Nation, a subset of Stat-USA database
• U.S. Census Bureau ( "Economic Census" section)

  In addition, consider which government agency might have data about the industry you are researching. For example, for airlines, you might try Bureau of Transportation Statistics from the U.S. Department of Transportation.

You can find market share data – for selected industries – not just for United States but worldwide, in Euromonitor GMID. Use the “Filter” button to limit your search to market share data only, then select “Geography” and
“Category” tabs.

There are two ways of finding direct data on market share in the Business and Company Resource Center database:

• Search Market Share Reporter or World Market Share Reporter.
  In "Advanced Search," choose "Rankings" in the "Content Area" and include one of the above titles as "Source" (or search across all rankings for your company name, industry description, etc.). Remember that both publications list only selected market share rankings.
• Search the database by company. In the company record, choose "Rankings" from the top tab menu. "Rankings" will expand into "Business Rankings" and "Market Share."

Finding Articles and News About Companies

Bowman Library subscribes to many Web-based databases where you will find newspaper, magazine and scholarly journal articles. Ones that are particularly useful for researching companies are listed below. See Searching Electronic Resources Effectively for guidelines on making the most of your search.

Business and Company Resource Center
Search by company and then follow the links to articles from within the found company record. Note that articles are available in two places: from the "Articles about this company" list of links on the left side of the screen, and from the "News/Magazines" top menu tab.

ProQuest
Drop-down menus allow you to combine a variety of terms and limit your search to a company, NAICS code, person, etc. Note the "More Search Options" link at the bottom of the page which allows you to browse lists of all of these limits.

LexisNexis Academic (Business section)
Search by company.

Hoover’s
There are no articles, only newswires and press releases from the last 90 days. Start your search for a company and then choose "News" from the side menu.

Consider checking news sources in the same location as the company. If the company is located in the Bay Area, you might check the following newspapers in the Bowman library:
San Francisco Chronicle
San Francisco Business Times
Silicon Valley/San Jose Business Journal

Check which local newspapers are available through Newsbank. Or visit the San Francisco Public Library Web site for a list (with links) of all the newspapers and magazines published in this area.

Selected Free Web Sites

The following Web sites have been selected by Bowman Librarians as examples of sites appropriate for college research. Keep in mind, however, that free Web resources are rarely filtered, often making it difficult to determine the content's accuracy. Use our guide Evaluating Web Resources to help you review the authority, currency, and objectivity or bias of every site you use.

Note that Bowman Library research databases Hoover’s and Business and Company Resource Center provide company URLs alongside other location/contact information.

EDGAR at Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)
http://www.sec.gov
SEC’s EDGAR is a searchable database of various company reports, including 10-K and prospectuses. Every publicly traded company is required by law to submit a detailed annual report (on a form “10-k”). This report becomes the foundation for the company’s Annual Report to Shareholders. A prospectus is a summary of information (financial, product, corporate history, assessment of competition, etc.) filed by a private company that is planning to become publicly traded.

Thomas.Net
http://www.thomasnet.com/
ThomasNet is an industrial search engine for industrial buyers, a one-step source for finding the exact product, service or supplier they need. You can search by company name or product and limit your search to a region. Brief company profiles include contact information and short product descriptions. This site covers Canadian companies as well as U.S.

Business Directory
http://www.business.com/
Developed by a team of industry experts and library scientists, the Business.com directory contains more than 400,000 listings within 65,000 industry, product and service subcategories. Search or browse 25 categories, from accounting through human resources to transportation.

GuideStar
http://www.guidestar.org/
Searchable data on more than 1.5 million nonprofit organizations, compiled from IRS Forms 990.

Citing Your Sources

Be sure to check with your professor on which citation style is required. Bowman Library provides the following resources to assist with citation format:

For online resources, see How to Cite Your Research for links to MLA, APA and Chicago citation styles.

MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers - LB2369 .G53 2003 (Located in Library Permanent Reserves).

Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association - BF76.7 .P83 2001 (Located in Library Permanent Reserves).

The Chicago Manual of Style - Z253 .U69 2003 (Located in Library Permanent Reserves).

Have Questions?

• Explore WOODIE for help with Research.
• The following guides include related information that may assist your research:
  • Industry Research Guide
  • Country Research Guide
  • Business Ethics Guide
  • Corporate Social Responsibility and Social Enterprise Research Guide
• Ask a Librarian. We are here to help!