Company Research
SOURCES FOR COMPANY RESEARCH: SECONDARY SOURCES (INFORMATION COMPILED BY OTHERS):
Company's web site: Start with the company’s web site; look for Investor Relations, About the Company, etc. There may be a CEO message, or you can also find mission statements, values, financial information, and other information to help you analyze the company’s strategies.
- PrivCo
Registration Required. See "more" for access information. PrivCo.com is a source for business and financial research on non-publicly traded corporations, including family-owned, private equity-owned, venture-backed and international unlisted companies. - Nexis Uni
Replaces LexisNexis Academic.
More than 15,000 news, business, and legal sources from LexisNexis—including U.S. Supreme Court decisions dating back to 1790. - Statista
Easy to use statistics search engine with access to more than a million statistics and facts. - International Directory of Company Histories
Provides histories of companies that are a leading influence in a particular industry or geographic location. For students, job candidates, business executives, historians and investors.
- EDGAR Company FilingsThis is the web site of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). In the US, public companies must file information with the SEC. A 10-K is the annual filing a company must make. Search by company name (or part of a name), ticker symbol, or search by industry to create a list of companies. If you find reports in EDGAR, that means the company is public.
Don't forget books, you can sometimes get great overviews of a company in a book. Search your company in our library catalog.
SOURCES FOR COMPANY RESEARCH: PRIMARY SOURCES (INFORMATION COMPILED BY YOU AND YOUR TEAM):
Interviews
Opinion Polls
Surveys
Observations
If you need help creating a survey or poll, see this guide on using Google Forms. It shows how to create, send, and view results from surveys you create.
Market Situation
SOURCES FOR INDUSTRY DESCRIPTIONS AND OVERVIEWS: SECONDARY SOURCES (INFORMATION COMPILED BY OTHERS):
- Passport
Country, industry, and consumer statistics and market research: Passport offers integrated access to internationally comparable statistics, full-text market reports, comment from expert industry and country analysts as well as thousands of sources of further information.
SOURCES FOR INDUSTRY NEWS: THESE SOURCES CAN BE USED FOR COMPANY, PRODUCT, AND BRAND NEWS TOO!:
- ProQuest One Business
A comprehensive business database containing millions of full-text items across scholarly and popular periodicals, newspapers, market research reports, dissertations, books, videos and more. Includes the full text of the Wall Street Journal. Formerly called ABI/INFORM Collection - Business Source Complete
This is the world's definitive scholarly business database, providing the leading collection of bibliographic and full text content. As part of the comprehensive coverage offered by this database, indexing and abstracts for the most important scholarly business journals back as far as 1886 are included. - Nexis UniReplaces LexisNexis Academic.
More than 15,000 news, business, and legal sources from LexisNexis—including U.S. Supreme Court decisions dating back to 1790.
SOURCES FOR INDUSTRY RESEARCH: PRIMARY SOURCES (INFORMATION COMPILED BY YOU AND YOUR TEAM):
Interviews
Opinion Polls
Surveys
Observations
Marketing Strategy and Mix
- PassportCountry, industry, and consumer statistics and market research: Passport offers integrated access to internationally comparable statistics, full-text market reports, comment from expert industry and country analysts as well as thousands of sources of further information.
- Data.census.gov
Data.census.gov is the new platform to access data and digital content from the U.S. Census Bureau. It replaces the American FactFinder website, which was retired in 2020.
This web site groups consumers into general categories, with brief descriptions and demographic information. Use the Zip Code Look-Up to get information about consumers in a particular area in both descriptions and graphs. There are three categories of information for consumers; PRIZM, P$YCLE, which describes the financial status of consumers, and ConneXions, which describes the level of technology use and connectivity of consumers. Use Segment Explorer to view descriptions of all of the consumer segments on the web site. Use the links on the left side of the screen to search for consumer groups by age, income, and other categories.
OTHER GOOD SOURCES:
Consumer Expenditure Survey: Bureau of Labor Statistics: US Labor Department
Statistics and reports on consumer expenditures, unemployment rates, and much more.
Experian Marketing Forward Blog: Freely available data, infographics, and reports on consumer behavior and trends.
Pew Research Center
A non-partisan research group that collects and presents data, opinions, and reports on American attitudes, activities, and trends.
Time Use Survey: Bureau of Labor Statistics: US Labor Department
Data on how American consumers use their time.
United Nations Demographic and Social Statistics
Includes information on demographics of countries, income and consumption, and more. Use the pull down menu for Demographic and Social Statistics. Then in each section, click on the Statistics link.
US Census Bureau International Data Base (IDB)
Statistical tables of demographic, and socio-economic data for 227 countries and areas of the world. Select data by country and year, then choose topics by using the pull down menu that says, Select Report.
Product/Brand Information and Performance
YOUR COMPANY'S WEB SITE
Press releases, media, products, company history, and other information
COMMERCIALS AND ADVERTISEMENTS
YouTube
Search for your brand to find ads and commercials
Encyclopedia of Consumer Brands
Print book. Call number: HF 5415.3 .E527
An older source, but gives good history and background on how some major brands were started and developed.
Encyclopedia of Major Marketing Strategies (2013)
Online reference source.
Search using product, brand, or company names for information on marketing campaigns and branding for a particular product or company.
Encyclopedia of Major Marketing Campaigns (2007)
Online reference source.
Search using product, brand, or company names for information on marketing campaigns and branding for a particular product or company.
Market Share Reporter
Online reference source.
Provides the market share for many companies within an industry, shown with pie charts and graphs.
The Making of a Name: The Inside Story of the Brands We Buy
Print book. Call number: HD 69.B7 R58 2004
Brandz
Lists of brand rankings and information about global brands. View the entire report, a chart, or an infographic.
Interbrand
Search Knowledge for papers, articles and studies on brands and branding, search Best Global Brands, to see brands rated, articles, and more.
RESEARCHING CONSUMER OPINION ON BRANDS: PRIMARY SOURCES (INFORMATION COMPILED BY YOU AND YOUR TEAM):
Interviews
Polls
Questionnaires
Surveys
Want to use a quick and easy survey method to reach your potential customers? Try Google Forms. Quick how-to guide.
Citing Your Sources
Whenever you do research, you will need to cite the information sources that you use. Most business scholars use APA style. Here are some tools that can help you with this task:
Gleeson Library's guide to citations: How? Why? When?
- APA 7th Edition Citations for Business SourcesAn excellent guide to using APA 7th edition style for popular business sources. Scroll through the guide to find an example for the business source you are using in your research. Compiled by librarians Naomi Schemm, Marcia Dellenbach, Zachary Grisham, Marianne Hageman, Natalia Tingle, Matt Trowbridge, and Amanda Wheatley
- Citing Business Databases in APA: Michigan State University GuideThis guide was created to help with citing some common business databases
- Citing Business Databases from the University of North Carolina at GreensboroThis guide has some additional business database examples in APA style.
- MLA Business Citations: Youngstown State UniversityScroll down the page to see citations for specific business web sites, reports, and databases cited in MLA style.
- Purdue OWLOur favorite style guide web site is the OWL from Purdue University.
- RefWorks
RefWorks allows users to create personal databases to manage, store, and share the information citations/references. Users can automatically insert references from their database into their papers and generate formatted bibliographies and manuscripts in seconds. Create an account using your USF email address.
Getting Help!
There are several ways to obtain assistance with your research. Read on!
The School of Management has a library liaison named Penny Scott, and you can contact her for help.
Her contact information is: email: plscott@usfca.edu * phone: 415-422-5389
It is best to call or email ahead, or make an appointment, to make sure she is available!
If Penny is not available, or any time you need help, you can always get help, just Ask a Librarian!