Library Guides: Company & Industry Research: Company Research

Public vs. Private

Public companies (companies authorized to sell stock to the general public) are legally required to file financial statements with the SEC and share information with their shareholders. Private companies do not publish much information about themselves as a key competitive strategy.

What's the difference between publicly- and privately-held companies? (Investopedia.com)

Tips for Searching Databases

If you are doing company research, in many of our databases you can search by ticker symbol. To find a company's ticker symbol, you can google it or look it up in a database like Morningstar or Value Line Investment Survey.

Likewise, if you are doing industry research, in many of our databases you can search by industry codes such as a NAICS code.

Finally, just like searching for books, you should utilize keywords and boolean operators to search for articles.

NAICS
U.S. Census Bureau tool for using the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS). Like knowing the ticker, knowing your company's NAICS code will help you locate industry and market information on library databases. You may have to try a few different keywords to find your NAICS code, for example, "Pest Management" won't return results but "Pest" and "Pest Control" will. I often will google "[Company Name] NAICS" to try to get a quick answer, but you should always check your results against the link here.
SIC Code
Search the 1987 Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) system from OSHA.gov by keyword to find the SIC code that classifies your industry. SIC codes are still used in some databases and reference sources, but the system is no longer being updated.

Not sure where to start? Here are some databases organized by research need...

ABI/INFORM Global
Provides indexing and abstracting for 1000 periodicals with full text for more than 600 publications.
Regional Business News
Provides comprehensive full text for regional business publications (including titles from Crain Communications). This database has full text for more than 60 sources.

Business-specific databases that provide articles and some non-journal content.

ABI/INFORM Global
Provides indexing and abstracting for 1000 periodicals with full text for more than 600 publications.

EconLit
Provides a reliable source of citations and abstracts to economic research in peer-reviewed journals, working papers, PhD dissertations, books, and book reviews.
Statista
Provides data and infographics on over 60,000 topics from over 18,000 sources, categorized into 21 market sectors with quantitative data on media, business, finance, politics, and a wide variety of other areas.

Historical Wall Street Journal
Provides full-text and full-image articles from 1889-2010.
Morningstar
Provides up-to-date stock and fund information to research current or prospective holdings and see how investments work together. Data reports cover more than 20,000 securities.
Wall Street Journal
Indexes, abstracts, and provides online full text for the Wall Street Journal newspaper 1984-present.
Value Line Investment Survey
Provides year-ahead and three-to-five-year probable relative price performance, projections of key financial measures, and concise, objective commentary on current operations and future prospects, as well as full-page individual stock reports and industry reviews.

ABI/INFORM Global
Provides indexing and abstracting for 1000 periodicals with full text for more than 600 publications.

Academic Search Ultimate
Offers access to an unprecedented collection of resources including journals, magazines, reports, books, and videos. Many are peer-reviewed and full-text. Subjects range from astronomy to zoology.
JSTOR (including ARTSTOR)
Provides full-text access to a broad range of resources about the humanities, sciences, and social sciences, including primary sources, images, articles, and books. Does not contain the most recent journal articles.
ScienceDirect
Provides extensive full-text journal coverage of the physical and biological sciences, as well as some coverage of the social sciences and humanities.
Web of Science
Enables users to search current and retrospective multidisciplinary information from thousands of the most prestigious, high impact research journals in the world. It also provides cited reference searching.

Statista
Provides data and infographics on over 60,000 topics from over 18,000 sources, categorized into 21 market sectors with quantitative data on media, business, finance, politics, and a wide variety of other areas.
Historical Statistics of the United States
Provides data from the Millennial edition, 2006.

Baltimore Sun
Indexes, abstracts, and provides online full text for The Sun, Baltimore (Baltimore Sun) newspaper 1990-present.
Historical Baltimore Sun
Includes complete issues of The Baltimore Sun from 1837 to 1996.
Historical New York Times
Provides full-text and full-image articles from the New York Times from 1851-2018.
Historical Wall Street Journal
Provides full-text and full-image articles from 1889-2010.
New York Times
Indexes, abstracts, and provides online full text for the New York Times newspaper (1980-present), the New York Times Book Review (1988-present), and the New York Times Magazine (1997-present).
Regional Business News
Provides comprehensive full text for regional business publications (including titles from Crain Communications). This database has full text for more than 60 sources.
Wall Street Journal
Indexes, abstracts, and provides online full text for the Wall Street Journal newspaper 1984-present.
Washington Post
Indexes, abstracts, and provides online full text for the Washington Post newspaper 1987-present.

Checkpoint Edge
Provides information to tax and accounting professionals including expert research, guidance, technology, tools, learning and news.
Access is limited to 35 simultaneous users.

Analyzing Competition in a Local Market

Many small businesses are either family owned or owned by one or a few partners. They are usually private companies who do not sell stock. Only the companies that are traded on the stock market make information about their organizations available to the public. Private businesses do not share financial, personnel, or sales data information.

There are other ways to analyze your competition and get the information you need--or at least come up with viable estimates.

How to find your competitors in a local market

Search yellow pages and directories

Whitepages (.com)
Click on Business near the search fields to search the Yellow Pages by category of business in a city/state.
Superpages (.com)
Search by category and cite/state for businesses in the Yellow Pages.
ThomasNet
Search for suppliers, whitepapers, and more. Limited content before requiring a free account.

Search the local Chamber of Commerce and/or Economic Development websites for business directories. These resources also contain an abundance of information and data on the local industries.

Maryland State Data Center
The Maryland State Data Center (SDC) is an official partner with the U.S. Census Bureau.
Salisbury, MD Area Chamber of Commerce
For information relating to commerce in Salisbury and Wicomico County, MD. For a list of companies, browse the Member Directory under Membership.
Maryland Business Express
Tools for planning, starting, managing, and growing your business.

Search Census information as a map, report, or data tables.

Census Business Builder - Small Business Edition
Map companies in a particular region operating in a particular industry or sector. You can create map layers for additional variables (consumer spending, population, etc.) as well as generate a report on that industry.