Kresge Research Guides: SI 663Innovation Leadership in the Information Industry Assignment (Information Industry): Company Information

Company Information Resources

D&B Hoovers
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- Information on nearly one million companies, including large and mid-sized companies in the United States and Canada, and hundreds of thousands of companies world-wide
- Use the OneStop report to get a great summary of any company in the U.S.
- Video tutorials for using this are available:
Mergent Online
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- Current and historical (past 15 years) firm descriptions, statistics, financial information, annual reports, mergers, acquisitions, disposals, joint ventures, long-term debt, bond ratings, capital stock and insider trading for U.S. and foreign companies
- Excellent source for corporate annual reports and SEC filings
Help guide
Orbis
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Information about European, US, Canadian, South and Central American, Japanese, Chinese, and African companies, as well as banks and insurance companies.

Video tutorials:
- Finding Company Information in Orbis [6:26]
- Exporting Data from Orbis [5:32]
Technical Notes: Use of scripts or automated methods to download data from Orbis is strictly prohibited. If you require access to a larger dataset, please contact us at kresge_library@umich.edu.
Orbis M&A (formerly Zephyr)
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Information about M&A, IPO, and venture capital deals, going back five years for international deals and back to 1997 for deals involving European and American companies. This resource is from the same company as Orbis.
ABI/INFORM Collection
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- General news resource that includes information on virtually all aspects of business (including companies, industries and emerging markets)
- Find the Wall Street Journal in full text from 1984 to present, as well as many scholarly and trade periodicals
Email and RSS feed alerts available.
Business Insights: Global
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Company profiles, brand information, rankings, investment reports, company histories, chronologies, SWOT analyses, case studies and periodicals. Includes the Market Share Reporter and Business Rankings Annual.

Hints for Finding Company Information

As you are researching companies (both competitors and comparable organizations), please keep these things in mind when using these databases:

Public companies have a great deal of available information (SEC filings, annual reports, analyst reports, detailed financials).
Private companies will have very little that is available (especially financial).
For private companies, use news resources and M&A deal information via Zephyr (if applicable).
For private companies, if the data does not look right, do not trust it.
Researchers will often try to frame a search for internal company documents - this is virtually never successful.
International company information varies a great deal - use a critical eye here.