All Guides: BUSM40000D Integrated Industry Project: Internal Analysis

Internal Analysis

Public companies are required to release company information to the government or the general public, so it will be easier to conduct the business research and find annual reports and financial reports from business databases.

For private companies, It will be more challenging for business research, because there are no legal requirements for private companies to publish their information or reports. So we sometimes can only find limited information available about private companies.

Mergent Online This link opens in a new window
Provides company financials, descriptions, histories, properties, subsidiaries and executive details. Also includes industry reports and access to Investext analyst reports. Country reports also can be found in Mergent Online.
Business Source Complete - Business Searching Interface This link opens in a new window
Select Company Profiles on the right of the page. Browse or search for the company name.
ABI/Inform Collection This link opens in a new window
Proquest
Over 8,000 newspapers, magazines and scholarly journals covering business and technology. Part of the ProQuest Central Collection.
Permitted Uses
Statista This link opens in a new window
Access to data from over 18,000 sources including industry reports, dossiers, and statistics, including Statistics Canada.
Nexis Uni This link opens in a new window
Select Company Info in the What you are interested in? box and search your company in the search box. You may narrow by column to filter your results by location, publication type, subject, etc.

Small Entrepreneurship

For small and medium-size company, here are some research tips:

Company website and company social media are good sources to find out the company's performance, strategy, products/services and more. Always look for "About Us" or "Company" link on the home page.
Searching your interested company or product in newspaper databases might be a good approach for private or small local company. You might consider add location to your keywords while searching. For example, search [company name] AND [area/region/location]
Industry organization or associations may publish information related to your research. Tips: search in Google, [industry] association [location] Examples: coffee association Canada

ProQuest Central This link opens in a new window
ProQuest Central provides access to thousands of full-text newspapers from around the world.
Note that: Use different keywords in your search.

For example, if you are looking for supply chain info for a company, you might consider search different keyword combinations, [Company name] AND (suppliers OR "supply chain" OR inventory)
Business Source Complete - Business Searching Interface This link opens in a new window
Company and industry profiles, SWOT analysis, market research, case studies, and nearly 2,000 peer-reviewed journals.

BUSM40000D Integrated Industry Project

Librarian, Pilon School of Business

Internal Analysis

Small Entrepreneurship

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