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BizMiner offers industry financial analysis benchmarks for over 5,000 lines of business and industry market trends on thousands more. Their market analysis reports are available at the national and local levels down to the zip code. BizMiner is a great resource to use when developing business plans, or for any sort of entrepreneurship initiatives where you need to measure peer performance in an industry.
Business Insights: Essentials
This is an excellent source for information in periodicals and it has a number on electronic business reference sources as well. Look up companies by name, see periodicals, company histories, company rankings, market share, some financials, company lines of business that are connected to excellent industry overviews. Use the Advanced Search option to find company histories, company rankings, market share, and industry overviews. Be sure to search by company name in the main search box.
Business Source Premier
Search for periodical information on company name, industry, product, etc.
Search on company name in one box, and another word or concept in another box…. Concepts like “strategy” or “strategic” or some other words related to your research interests. Business Source Premier is the best place to search and browse popular, trade, and scholarly academic journals. Use the "company profiles" option to search for useful MarketLine reports by company name. Be sure to find the industry overview for you topic in this database. They will include the Porter's Five Forces.
Platform used to analyze financial data from global equity and fixed income markets. Coverage includes data on ownership and private equity and venture capital investments.
Note: To get access, request an account using your UMD email. (Registration can require 24 hours or more.)
Indexes scholarly literature. Strong in the areas of medicine, engineering, the sciences, and business. Provides relevancy rankings based on the citation patterns of the articles. Sources are linked to Library electronic holdings via "Find It." This is your first best place to search for scholarly journal articles. Look up industries, and related sub-topics, products, or company names.
IBIS provides Industry market research reports on over 1,300 U.S. industries, plus Canada Industries, China Industries, and Global Industries, Each IBISWorld report includes:
You can find reports easily by browsing by industry sector, by SIC or NAICS codes, or or simply searching by keyword. This will be your main source for industry overviews. Look for the "Supermarkets & Grocery Stores in the United States" AND "Specialty Food Stores in the US" reports. Or, look for reports in other industries.
Mergent Online
Excellent source for 15 years of financial data, company financial ratios, annual reports and other financial data. Be sure to locate company annual reports and download the "Mergent Report" for your company. See the Compare Companies Video.
MorningStar
More excellent financial data, and make sure to look at current and archived Analyst Research in "Stock Analysis".
Proquest News
Proquest News is our best source for newspaper information with archives going back over 30 years. This contains the full text of the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times. Use Proquest News to update the information you will find in your industry overviews.
Economist
New York Times
Wall Street Journal
Passport from Euromonitor
This is our best source for international marketing information. Here are narrative reports and statistics on consumer products, consumer lifestyles, and retailing structures of 50-60 major nations, including the United States. 4,000 international company reports can be found here too. Use the keyword “Text” search option located at the top of the screen. Search for companies, products, and industries.
Other Suggested Websites
Wikipedia
Wikipedia includes information more often associated with almanacs, gazetteers, and specialist magazines, as well as coverage of current events. It has almost 6 million entries, and is constantly growing. Many articles are long, detailed, with sources and related links. Wikipedia has been controversial because of its open collaborative nature, however it has received good marks in recent scholarly journals. This may be a good place to get an overview of business related definitions, topics or issues, and a source of keywords to help while searching in our business databases.
List of Supermarket Chains in the United States -- Wikipedia
Whole Foods Market -- Wikipedia
Portal Supermarkets -- Wikipedia
Read our MarketLine Reports:
Food Retail in the United States -- MarketLine Report
Organic Food in the United States -- MarketLine Report
Whole Foods Market -- MarketLine Report
The Kroger Company -- MarketLine Report
Supermarket Facts
How to Compare the Financials of One Company to Another:
NAICS Classification and NAICS Search
How to search for NAICS Numbers?
SWOT Analysis
Comparing Companies -- Financial Ratios
If you are giving classroom presentations, note the useful information you will find in:
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Citing Your Sources:
If you are writing a Report, you will need to cite your sources. This webpage provides examples in APA Style.
