1. Is the company private or public?
Public companies have stock traded on an open market.
- These companies are required to file financial information with the government.
- Therefore, if a company is publicly owned, financial information is easy to find.
A private company has few (or no) shareholders.
- Privately-owned stock is not available for market trade.
- Detailed financial information about a private company is proprietary and therefore not available to the public.
2. Is it a member/subsidiary?
3. Is it a U.S.-based or international company?
How to answer these 3 questions?
1. Use a Company Profile database
- These databases provide basic descriptions of most well-known retailers.
- MarketLine and S&P NetAdvantage also provide commentary and analysis.
- S&P and Morningstar cover sales, profit, and other financial data.
- Corporate Affiliations is great for seeing the corporate family tree.
- Yahoo Finance provides basic company profiles, stock valuations, and financial data.
- All four databases also cover competitors.
2. Annual Reports also cover the basic facts.
- A public company's web site provides its annual report online.
- Look in the financial section for the income statement, which provides annual sales and profit data.
- But S&P and Morningstar also cover that.
3. Corporate mission statements?
- A company's web site or its annual report are the main places to try to find a mission statement.
- No library/research databases provide mission statements, so don't look there.
4. Advertising examples?
- Check the company's web site.
- Articles from business magazines (ex. Advertising Age) cover major, individual advertising campaigns.
- There are also web pages devoted to advertising history.
5. Histories
- International Directory of Company Histories
Reference HD2721 .I620 (many volumes)
Covers over 7,800 company histories in more than 77 volumes. Use the index in the latest volume to find the company you need.- MarketLine provides a company history, too.
1. Begin with Industry Sources
- These databases (ex. S&P and IBIS Industry Market Research) describe the current situation of industries like Retailing--General, Retailing--Speciality, or Women's Clothing Stores).
- They also provide a forecast, predictions about the future.
- Euromonitor provides retailing reports, too.
2. Articles from business magazines may also help.
- Search these databases for topics like "trends AND clothing trade" or "trends AND fashion".
- You'll have to look in each article to and identify the main point of the author.
A. Mintel Reports
- Provides full-text market and consumer research reports on retailing and other markets and industries.
- International in scope, but with emphasis on the United States and Europe.
- Most of the reports cover market drivers, market share, size, structure, segmentation, trends, consumer expenditure and spending patterns, psychographics, forecasts, and company and brand profiles.
- Provides marketing data and reports on countries, companies, markets, and consumers.
- Particularly strong for the clothing and retailing industries.
