34 Company Information - Information by Field (Information Research)
Description
This article is from the Information Research FAQ, by David Novak david@spireproject.com with numerous contributions by others.
34 Company Information - Information by Field (Information Research)
links and more at http://spireproject.com/company.htm
Company information forms the backbone to the information industry.
There is real money here. Investors are eager, customers & suppliers
are eager, competitors are eager to find good information. As a result,
a wide collection of very client-centered research resources has grown
up to deliver to this market.
Your research may take you into competitive intelligence and private
investigation - talking to competitors, customers, suppliers, past
employees and more. Another direction leads to information specific to
an industry: perhaps locating export logs or chemical patents. For the
purpose of this article, let's restrict ourselves to public, general
and readily available resources: publications from the company itself,
government disclosure documents, directory information, business news
articles, compiled company profiles, and related profiles like credit
reports or investment profiles.
Corporate Websites
Let's start with the obvious. Companies publish information about
themselves - some of it quite useful & factual. Look for a company
website.
* Use Altavista to find a specific commercial website. Specifically use
the url:name function (like url:nike).
* Alternatively, use Debriefing (http://www.debriefing.com), a
meta-search engine optimized for finding names and named websites.
* If you still have difficulties, consider a local or national search
engine.
Government Disclosure Documents
Governments require all companies to release some information - some of
this is made public. Much greater information is released from public
companies.
* EDGAR (http://www.sec.gov/cgi-bin/srch-edgar), a database produced by
the (US) Securities and Exchange Commission, delivers all public US
company submissions as required by law. The information is factual and
numerical - and includes both current and past submissions. Access is
free on the net.
* SEDAR (www.sedar.com), produced for the Canadian Depository for
Securities, is the Canadian counterpart to the US EDGAR database. SEDAR
delivers the public securities filings and public/mutual fund profiles.
SEDAR also includes some press releases. The search is very
user-friendly.
EDGAR (and presumably SEDAR) are also basic ingredients to other
commercial databases like EDGAR Plus on Dialog or company profiles like
Hoovers Company Profiles. EDGAR Plus and Disclosure (another database)
contain very similar data to the free EDGAR database but include better
fields and standardized financials.
Basic Directory Information
Address, contact numbers and basic size may be all you need initially.
Such information can be found through numerous book directories. Most
directories are created from questionnaires, so the information is
suggestive - not absolute.
Directories come in different forms; general information, businesses in
specific industries or regions, registers like American Export Register
& Australian Exports, and serialized directories like Kompass & Who's
Who (i.e. Who's Who of Business in Australia). The commercial databases
to these serials usually cover a far larger area that may be very
useful. Kompass comes in national directories; one of the databases
covers S.E.Asia.
Every library will have numerous directory titles available, though not
always the most recent editions. Especially in recent years, a vast
collection of directories have emerged with titles like Lloyds Shipping
Register, Radio Airtime Sales, and National Directory of Multicultural
Research - clearly a great range exist.
Some of the more popular directories have previously become available
as commercial databases. A small collection of directories like Thomas
Register of American Manufacturing, American Export Register and
CompaniesOnline (Dun & Bradstreet with Lycos) are emerging free online.
The humble phone book is certainly available. Another option is to
reach for phone numbers on CD-ROM. Australian Businesses on CD,
American Business Information - A Business Directory (Dialog) and more.
Directories may also be used to determine what the companies produce
and sell. The Kompass Directories index manufacturers by product.
Australian Exports (by Austrade) lists exporters by product.
Directories have other innovative uses too.
Corporate structure can be found using, again, a collection of
directories: America's Corporate Families and International Affiliates,
Directory of Corporate Affiliations (Dialog), Who Owns Who (by Dun &
Bradstreet)
Company Annual Reports
Annual reports are brilliant at giving a concise review of a business
or government operation and they usually don't lie too directly (though
they do put quite a spin on the statistics from time to time).
Annual reports will be found in one of five sources:
* State Public Libraries,
* Stock Exchange Libraries,
* Direct from the Company,
* Purchased through Annual Report Providers,
* Annual reports may also be published on the company website. Wall
Street Journal and Public Register's Annual Report Service -PRARS are
reported as commercial annual reports providers.
The Simon Fraser University Library has compiled a fine resource for
company annual reports: Business - Annual Reports
(http://www.lib.sfu.ca/kiosk/mbodnar/anrpt.htm).
News Coverage and Press Releases
Many newswires contain copious amounts of information about companies -
and describe products, mergers and fiascoes. Prominent newspapers
specialize in covering business. In active research, this means
searching the commercial databases of past & recent news. This is
described in more detail in our news article.
News is generated locally, then distributed globally through the
newswires. Associated Press, Reuters and the top of the line Bloomberg
Business Newsall deliver business news targeted to the investor.
Press releases are released through BusinessWire and PR Newswire and a
selection of national wire services. Current press releases are usually
free online but past press releases are again archived as commercial
databases. This information is also rather ubiquitously used in the
preparation of company profiles.
Prominent business investigation also occurs through specific
newspapers. The Financial Times and the Wall Street Journal can be very
useful resources in this regard. Of course, these newspapers are also
available as searchable databases. Business Electronic Newspapers
(http://www.libraries.rutgers.edu/rulib/socsci/busi/busenews.htm) lists
many of the business-related electronic news sources available on the
internet.
Business & Trade Articles
Companies are also profiled in the trade periodicals. There are three
ways to approach this. Firstly, you can attempt a broad search for
articles about a company in a wide collection of commercial article
databases. Secondly, you can seek articles in specific, topical trade
publications by searching databases specific to the field the company
works in. Thirdly, you can use what is close at hand, perhaps access to
ABI/Inform or another popular business article database, and see what
appears.
These alternative approaches each have pros & cons. ABI/Inform has a
deep North American bias (as do many commercial databases) and indexes
many of the more trashy/newsy local business magazines. Tightly focused
databases may simply have nothing on the target company - or have only
technical matters. Certain databases will allow you to specify during
the search exactly what company you are interested in: you will read of
these in the database descriptions.
To find trade periodicals, consider searching on a broad business
database, then noting the titles that repeat themselves.
Commercial Company Profiles
A wide range of potted histories, financial histories and current
information is available. The market is not necessarily centered in the
US, but North American products are better promoted. This information
comes in the form of small reports about a given business, prepared
with investors in mind.
* Hoover's Online (www.hoovers.com)
* Standard & Poor
* Dun & Bradstreet
* Moody's - Moody's Corporate Profiles
* Disclosure (www.disclosure.com)
* Value Line Investment Survey
* Worldscope (www.worldscope.com), a global database.
For a fine, European dominated list of country profile retailers, read
Sheila Webber's article: Company Profiles and Financial Information
(http://www.dis.strath.ac.uk/business/financials.html).
A holistic approach: the most powerful tools present a variety of
resources for your attention.
* Lexis-Nexis Company Library
* Dow Jones News/Retrieval Service
Investext (www.investext.com) - provides in-depth business research -
access to collections of investment research, market research, and
trade association research, authored by analysts at investment banks,
brokerages and related consulting firms. The work is also available
through EINS, Dialog and Datastar.
Conclusion
Company research need not stop here. There are many avenues of further
research: Directly ask the company for sales literature: catalogue,
price list, local sales agents, Monitor company employment
advertisements, Articles in the trade and specialized press, Company
registers: in addition to anonymous statistical compilations, the
national statistical bureau will also have a register of businesses -
by name - with address coded by industry code. This is used firstly
with site analysis, but may also be useful for geographical analysis of
businesses. Background information on company leaders: their history,
experience and age, Patent research. Industry level research - see
Industry Research, Large international firms may have books written
about them - consider a book search, Interview past employees of the
company, Interview their suppliers or customers, Local newspapers where
the firm is located.
The task of finding information about companies is really a task of
finding information thrown off in the process of running a business.
Some of it is mandated by government (Edgar & Sedar), some of it by
newspapers, some by the company itself (websites, price lists). In each
case, some organization has stepped forward to collect and organize the
information. Annual Reports on the web gave rise to web directories of
annual reports. Corporate ownership - the directory "Who Owns Who" by
Dun & Bradstreet.
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