Researching Company Info
Remember! The amount and quality of information you can find depends on whether a company is public or private. Privately owned companies may have less info available than publicly traded companies
Company Profiles
Use the libraries' databases to find company profiles put together by 3rd party market research groups.
- Business Source Premier This link opens in a new window
Provides full text for business publications, including peer-reviewed journals.
See also the Business Searching Interface
- Euromonitor Passport This link opens in a new windowMarket research and analysis on companies, industries, and consumers for 40 countries. Note: First-time users must register to use this using their campus email accounts.
- Statista This link opens in a new window
Data sources for industries in countries around the world. Visit the Getting Started Guide for more information.
- Morningstar Investing Center This link opens in a new window
Data and analysis on international and domestic stocks, mutual funds, and exchange traded funds.
- Mergent Intellect This link opens in a new window
Private and public U.S and international business data, industry news, facts and figures, executive contact information, and industry data.
Company Websites
Visiting a company website is a great way to learn more about the company's mission and values, products and services, and their activities. Public companies will have information like quarterly and annual reports and earnings call presentations available on their websites, usually on a page called Investor Relations.
Example:
The layout and organization of a company's Investor website will each be different. But all with have useful content to use in your research. Three things to start with:
A document that public corporations must provide annually to shareholders that describes their operations and financial conditions.
The earnings conference call is a way for companies to relay information to all interested parties, including institutional and individual investors, as well as buy- and sell-side analysts.
A press release is a piece of news or information that companies send out to inform the public about something noteworthy or of material significance. Press releases are often handled by a company's public relations (PR) department.
Example:
Librarian
Company News
News coverage of companies is a great way to learn about their activities and operations, controversies (such as lawsuits or labor issues) and social responsibility initiatives, and give outsider perspectives on the organization's products or services. Newspapers and magazines may also have insightful interviews with company executives.
- ProQuest U.S. Newsstream This link opens in a new window U.S. news content and archives that stretch back to the 1980s from national and regional news sources, including The New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Boston Globe, Chicago Tribune, and the Minneapolis Star Tribune.
- ProQuest International Newsstream This link opens in a new window Provides the most recent news content outside of the U.S. and Canada, with archives that stretch back decades featuring newspapers, newswires, and news sites. Provides information from some of the world's top newspapers including The Times (London), The Bangkok Post, El Norte, Financial Times, The Guardian, The Daily Telegraph, and more.
- Access World News This link opens in a new window Local, national, and international news sources including newspapers, broadcast transcripts, newswires, news blogs, and video. See How to Conduct a Basic Search tutorial video.
Search Tip:
Where is your company's headquarters located? Find news sources local to that area for more frequent and in-depth coverage of the company's activities. For example, if researching Target Corporation (headquartered in Minneapolis, MN) look for news coverage from local sources such as the StarTribune newspaper and Minnesota Public Radio.