Research Guides: Business Communication (22:373:551): Company

Company Ownership

Yahoo! Finance
Type your company name into the “Get Quotes” search box. If your company appears and has a ticker symbol, then it is a publicly traded company and will have much more information available about it. If your company does not appear and does not have a ticker symbol, then it is privately owned and will be much harder to find information about.

Determining company ownership (i.e. if the company is publicly or privately owned) is the first step in undertaking company research.

Company Overview

MarketLine
Provides access to MarketLine reports on companies which include company histories, key executives, a business description, a revenue analysis, a SWOT analysis, and key competitors. Updated three times a year.
Search under "Companies."

Company overviews often provide a company history, a list of major products and services, a revenue analysis, and a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, treats) analysis.

Additional Resources

Data Axle Reference Solutions (formerly ReferenceUSA)
This is a directory database for millions of firms that can be searched by company name, industry code, geographic area, among many other options.
Company Research Guide
This guide will direct you to many print and online resources for conducting research on public, private, and foreign companies.

Company Financials

Mergent Online
Provides up to 15 years (or more) of annual and quarterly financial data for public companies only. Has corporate histories including mergers and acquisitions, lists of any subsidiaries and property holdings, and links to SEC filings and stakeholder annual reports.

The following database contains detailed company financial data.

Article Indexes

Business Source Premier
Provides access to thousands of popular and scholarly publications, including newspapers and magazines. Search by company name to find relevant artices.

Find articles about your company using the article indexes below.

Westlaw Campus Research
Index of thousands of publications, including many newspapers like The New York Times, and magazines such as Newsweek. Search by company name to find relevant articles.
Factiva
Search for articles in both US and international newspapers, including the Wall Street Journal.

Note: Change the default date range from Last 3 Months if you'd like to have more search results.