Business Resources

A "few" notes from a lecture by Marydee Ojala on September 13, 2009.

Delving into Deep Web Business Resources

When doing business research, you rarely find your answer in one place and you rarely find it using a linear approach.  Sometimes, even, web research means that you find an expert on the web - and then CALL the expert!

Note:  This seminar focused mostly on FREE internet tools.  Throughout this session, however, I heard Lexis mentioned repeatedly by attendees, which is a very expensive fee-based database.  One definitely got the impression that in the world of research, Lexis was an important tool. However, you don't have to have an expensive database like Lexis in order to get data, but it may take more effort to get the data you need, and in some cases it may not be quite as complete. 

General Search Engines, such as Google, bing, Yahoo are a good starting point, particularly if this is a new area to you.  Word choice and order DO make a difference.  From here you can pick up terminology and who's interested.

In my own research, I often do a lot of broad searching first to try to pick up names and terminology.  Then use those to search further.

Topical Search Engines
Yahoo local - for finding companies
Yelp - "Crowd-source" reviews.  What do other people think about them?
Ides.com - Industry specific search engines are out there, such as this one for Plastics
Government - use Federal, state and local sites
Publications:  Bizjournals,  Zibb (Global business Search Engine)

Vertical Sites or wikis and blogs


Topical Search Resources
Financial Times Lexicon -  Search financial terms, such as "Ponzi Scheme", "TARP" etc
Investorwords - another dictionary
Vault.com - employee's views of companies
Zoominfo - find people or companies - compiled from assorted web sources, but not vetted
GlobalSpec - standards, specs ($)
Oodle - local classified ads - a competitor to Craigslist

Financial Portals - portals are usually geared toward individual investors

Yahoo Finance -  liked better than Google finance
CNN Money - more news oriented

Business Portals
Intranet, Extranet, wikis ( Bizwiki )


Country Search Engines
 Google Country   Google Languages
Yahoo Country directory    Yahoo Languages
Searchenginecolossus - an international directory of search engines
GlobalEdge - by Michigan State "Your Source for Global Business Knowledge"

Site Search
Use Google to search within a site for a term.  Put a term, such as "Pizza Hut" in front of the word "site", followed by a colon and then the site url.
Like this:
Pizza Hut site:fredericknewspost.com
Using the above example, Google would search in the FNP website for the term "Pizza Hut".

Company Profiles

Hoover's  (owned by Dunn and Bradstreet)
S&P Descriptions
Extel (UK SIC codes)
Nexis Company Dossier
Factiva
Investext - for reports
Manta.com
Also - More and more companies are posting their company profiles on their own website or blog.

Company Directories - to help you locate companies and information about them

• Mint - has some free information, and some fee-based
• Dunn and Bradstreet  - they get their information from the companies
• Find information about a company by looking at websites by related Trade Associations
• Check their credit files  (Experian)
• Check the phone book (yellow pages)

Small, Private Companies - smaller companies may not be listed in the big directories above. To get a feel about a small company, try to find out some things about them, such as:

• Are they registered with the State? check Secretary of State site for that state.
• Do they have any patents, trademarks or brands?
• Do they have local permits, licenses, or occupancy certificates
• Try to find them  with Google Street View, or Google maps
• Try to find them in the news online
• Are they in Facebook?  Do they have any fans?
• Sometimes the owner of the company IS the company.  Try to find out information about the owner.  Some tools for that are LinkedIn , Zoominfo , and Spokeo.
  
• Does the company have their own website

Annual Reports, Filings

• EDGAR - filings in the U.S.
• Company websites - more and more companies are putting their Annual reports on their own websites
• International - different countries have different rules about what type of data they will allow access to.
• Non-profits - try  Guidestar.org   or  Idealist.org 

Alternative Formats

• Images and Videos
  Certainly a company will want to pay attention to not just what is SAID about them, but also what IMAGES are out there.  -- such as the infamous Burger King video on YouTube.
  Truveo ,  Blinkx , Google Video
  
• You can also search for specific file formats, such as spreadsheets ( .xls ) or PDF files (.pdf).  
• Blogs - Bloglines  Icerocket
  
• Podcasts - PodcastAlley , PodScope
  
• Discussion Groups (Yahoo! Groups and Google Groups are most common)
• Wikipedia and other wikis
• Search tags
• Check social networking sites,such as Facebook
  

News

• Guides to published news  Newslink.org,  AJR.org,  medianewsgroup.com, SmallTownPapers
• Newsnow.co.uk
  
• Fee-based services:   Dialog NewsRoom,  Factiva, LexisNexis, ProQuest Historical Newspapers

 Note about DIALOG:  DIALOG is now owned by ProQuest, but it was reportedly neglected by its previous owners and has a lot of "gaps" at present.  ProQuest is trying to revive it.

Statistics

• Government statistics (Federal, State, Local) - they can often be very confusing, however, so sometimes it's better to call and ask.
• Trade Associations (look for their website)
• Think Tanks
• Article illustration footnotes
• For helps with visualizing data try ManyEyes  Data360.org  Swivel.com 

Market Research - do be skeptical when it comes to market reports.  You don't always know where their data comes from.  And be watchful of dates.  How old is their data?

• Marketresearch,  Mindbranch, Mintel   , Ibisworld,  Euromonitor , Datamonitor , Thomson Research

Note:  Market SIZE is a dollar amount /  Market SHARE is a % of the market

Some New Directories

• Google Street View - Sample 
• Mashups - example  Maponics  mapping service
• Yellow Pages - traditional Yellow Pages are now threatened due to emergence of customer-supplied data

Data Visualization tools:
ManyEyes  by IBM "for shared visualization and discovery" - a graphing program
Data360.org
Swivel     lets you play with other people's data but also helps you make your own charts

Fee-Based Business Research Resources:

• Traditional - Dialog , Factiva , Nexis
• Fee-based to the library, but not the users - ProQuest CSA, EBSCO, S&P, NetAdvantage
• High-End - Alacra, Onesource, Thomson Research, Bloomberg, Capital IQ
• International - SkyMinder, DataStar
• EDGAR - Morningstar, LIVEDGAR, EDGAR Online
• Pay Per View - Highbeam , Gale Goliath

Misc:
Visual Search Engines - Cluuz , Kvisu - for inTRAnet searching,  Qintura

How do you know when to STOP searching?  Answer:  When you run out of time or money.  Be sure to manage the expectations of the person requesting the information.   Use multiple sources.  Trust but verify!