Please contact a School of Management Librarian for more information or to schedule an appointment:
Librarian: Linda Schuller Wolf, linda.wolf@simmons.edu, 617.521.3851
Library Assistant: Michael Wick, wick2@simmons.edu, 617.521.3847
Locating Secondary Information: The Industry Analysis and Market Analysis
Your research will be a combination of primary research and secondary research:
Primary research for a business plan is firsthand, raw data, which you often have to collect yourself in order to find out the answer to one of your questions. It often involves administering surveys and questionnaires or conducting interviews or focus groups with potential customers or with existing companies and competitors. This is often the only way to get very specific information, such as the demand for a product from a narrow target audience (specific age group or geographic location), or users' preferences about product or service enhancements. You can also search the Library Online Catalog for more sources.
Secondary research are materials that interpret or analyze facts and statistics. Secondary research is what you can find using Library resources - it includes articles, books and statistics compiled by a reliable authority that you can cite in your industry analysis and final business plan. Common secondary research would be an overview of the industry, market size of the industry, demographic data, competitors and their market share, projections for the demand for the product in the future.
Industry Analysis
Note: When beginning industry research, you often need to know the SIC/NAICS:
- What is an SIC? - http://library.uncg.edu/depts/ref/biz/naics.asp
- What is NAICS - http://www.census.gov/epcd/www/naics.html
- NAICS/SIC code manual - Ref. HF1042 N34
Industry Overviews (including market size, market share). (good place to try for business description, industry analysis, market analysis):
Note: It is easy to find information on major industries, such as apparel, but you often have to glean information from multiple articles for more specific industries, such as children's apparel, and definitely have to rely on articles or even primary research for niche industries such as children's apparel that matches the clothes and accessories of dolls.
- Standard & Poors Industry Surveys - excellent 30 page industry overviews of 50 major industries
- Marketline (formerly Dashboard) - 3000 global industry profiles - market share, market size
- Global Market Information - 6-year historic market size data for more than 330 consumer products in 52 countries, plus 5-year forecasts, lifestyle indicators such as eating and drinking habits, home ownership trends and crime patterns for 71 countries worldwide, 4,500 market reports, offering in-depth strategic analysis for consumer, industrial and service sectors
- Encyclopedia of American Industries overviews of major industries
Industry News:
- ABI/Inform - Find in-depth coverage of business conditions, trends, corporate strategies and tactics, management techniques, competitive and product information, and a wide variety of other topics from more than 1800 leading business and management publications, most of which are fulltext or page-image. Includes fulltext Wall Street Journal.
- Business Source Premier - A comprehensive business periodical database that includes scholarly journals and business periodicals covering topics such as management, economics, finance, accounting, international business and more. BSP provides more than 8,800 full text scholarly publications, some as far back as 1922, such as the Harvard Business Review.
- Lexis-Nexis Academic - Lexis-Nexis provides access to full-text information from national and regional newspapers, international news sources, business news journals, industry and market news, SEC filings, and much more.
Additional Marketing Statistics:
- PROMT - article info, from trade journals, industry newsletters, and market research studies
- Tablebase - a database just of statistics
- Reuters Business Insights - market research reports in 5 specific areas
- Market Share Reporter - Ref. HF5410 M35 - all data on niche market size and share
Industry Associations:
- Associations (Yahoo) - http://dir.yahoo.com/Business_and_Economy/Organizations/Trade_Associations/
- Google - Try searching “trade association” with your industry name to find a list of professional associations that deal with your industry. Make sure to check the validity of the organization, by looking at their "About" page or other associations. A lot of these associations have free information, research, white papers, reports, etc. online. If it is not available free online, it is suggested that you contact the association directly and ask for specific sets of info.
- Encyclopedia of Associations (Ref. HS17.G332 2008) and National Trade and Professional Associations of the United States (Ref. HD2425.D53 2008) are two print resources that provide information on trade and industry associations such as website, address, publication information, and other contact information. It is highly suggested to search these titles in addition to Google and Yahoo, because a lot of associations may not be present on the web.
Statistical Information (demographics, financials)
Statistics/Demographics (good for customers/target market):Financial benchmarks (good for financial projections):
- American Fact Finder - http://factfinder.census.gov/
- Bureau of Labor Statistics - http://stats.bls.gov/ including Employment Projections from the BLS
- Chamber of Commerce Directory - http://chamber-of-commerce.com/search.htm
- FedStats - http://www.fedstats.gov/
- Municipal Data (Massachusetts; arranged by city) - http://lmi2.detma.org/lmi/Townbox.asp
- State of Massachusetts Community Profiles
- Statistical Abstracts of the United States - http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/
- US Census - http://www.census.gov
- The Lifestyle Market Analyst. HF 5415.3 .L56
- The Sourcebook of Zip Code Demographics. HA 203 .S66 Includes population, number of households, and race and age distribution information by zip code.
- Annual Statement Studies - (also available in print: Ref HF 5681 .B2 R6 2007-08) Comparative historical data and other sources of composite financial data by industry (assets, liabilities).
- Industry norms & key business ratios - Ref. HF5681 R25 I525 2006-07
- Almanac of Business and Industrial Financial Ratios - Ref HF 5681 .R25 A45 2001 (most recent edition available at SOM Library). Gives revenues, operating costs, balance sheets, financial ratios, trends.
- Business Plan Samples - http://www.referenceforbusiness.com/business-plans/
- Also see many of the sample business plans, and numbers quoted in industry articles (PROMT; Tablebase)
Company Information:
- Hoover's Company Records - Provides information on more than 40,000 public and private companies and 225,000 key executives
- Marketline - Provides over 30,000 company profiles on leading global companies
Research Guide Handout: http://my.simmons.edu/library/research/MGMT_390_senior_seminar.pdf
Powerpoint: http://my.simmons.edu/library/research/mgmt_390.ppt