Overview
Companies generally fall into one of three categories:
- Publicly traded companies
- Subsidiaries of publicly traded companies
- Large and small private companies
Public Companies:
It is very easy to find a great deal of information about publicly traded companies. Most public company web sites link directly to their annual report, press releases, financial information, and company history.
Subsidiaries of Publicly Traded Companies:
Sources and amount of information on subsidiaries of publicly traded companies vary widely. You may be able to find all the information you need in the parent company’s web site, annual report, etc. In other cases, these sources may not provide enough information. Trade journals and newspapers may be better sources for information on subsidiaries of publicly traded companies.
Private Companies:
Private companies are not required to release any financial information to the public. However, company web sites, trade journals, and newspapers may provide good information on these companies.
Basic Company Information
Resources:
Explanation:
The first part of any company research is to find out some basic facts about the company, such as:
Company Name |
Home Page |
The information that can be found in these “directory sources” varies widely.
Hoover’s provides the most comprehensive information on all of the companies that it follows (over 12,000,000 internationally). Hoover’s provides a company overview, as well as a summary of significant developments in a company's history. Profiles also include competitor and employee lists, subsidiaries, news, and dozens of aggregated sources. Hoovers will also provide a list of competitors as well as company officers and board members, with ages, bios, and salaries when available.
Dun and Bradstreet’s Million Dollar Database is the one of the oldest and most trusted of business directories. This directory provides information on over 1,600,000 U.S. public and private companies. Dun and Bradstreet does not give you the depth of information that Hoover’s provides, but Dun & Bradstreet does cover more companies. Typical information that you find in Dun & Bradstreet is: address, telephone number, sales, number of employees, list of officers, and web page (if available). This is a good database if you are looking for the plant locations of large companies.
Verisign Whois is basically a directory of web sites. There are often instances when the company that you are looking for cannot be found in Hoovers or Dun & Bradstreet. This particular web site will allow you to search for the name of the company to determine if they have registered a web site and is it active (not always the case).
It is possible that the company that you are researching is not one where Hoover’s provides “in depth” information. In spite of that drawback, directory information can give you some facts that will allow you to continue your research in another resource. The type of information that you should be looking for is:
Is the company a public company, a subsidiary company, a branch company, or a private company?
What is the city where the company is located?
Corporate Culture
Resources:
Explanation:
Corporate culture refers the work environment. It would include such issues as:
Work Load and Ethics |
Communication Styles |
Both Vault and Wetfeet are web resources. The Business Career Center also has some of Vault’s industry reports available in paper.
News
Resources:
Explanation:
In preparation for an interview you may want to search the business press (Forbes, Fortune, Business Week, Wall Street Journal, etc) to read any major articles that talk about the company.
ABI/Inform, Lexis/Nexis and Business Source Elite are very good sources to search for the articles in the business press. Both databases index Forbes, Fortune, Business Week, etc.
Proquest Newspapers is the database that can provide full text access to the Wall Street Journal.
Factiva is the one database that can provide access to the major magazine (Forbes, Fortune, etc) as well as the Wall Street Journal.
Industry Information
Resources:
Explanation:
Part of your pre-interview preparation should include some research regarding the business environment of the company. Here are some examples of industry information that might help in the interview:
What is the current environment in the industry?
What are the trends and forecasts?
Who are the major players in the industry?
Public Companies
Resources:
Explanation:
Hoover’s usually provides in-depth information on public companies. However, if you want more information on the company there are a number of sources that you can use for additional information.
Annual Reports: These are usually 40 to 50 page documents.This is often a big public relations promotion, but you do get some financials and some data on future operations. More importantly it allows you to see how the company perceives itself. You can often find Annual Reports on the company’s web page. You can also use Global Access to find annual reports.
10K’s: These are the large annual filings with the SEC. Many of these documents are 150 to 350 pages. There are sections that are important to read, the “description of business” and “management discussion and analysis”. You can often find 10K’s on the company’s web site and at Edgar. You can also use Mergent Online to find 10K’s.
Standard & Poor’s Stock Reports: Stock Reports provides fast access to facts, figures, analysis and projections for approximately 5,500 publicly-held U.S. corporations
Subsidiaries of Public Companies
Resources:
Explanation:
Researching subsidiaries isn't easy. Companies are not required to disclose financial or performance data by business units. They are only required to provide segment data on how the business is organized. For instance, there is little information on Oscar Mayer in Phillip Morris’ Annual Report or 10K. The data for Oscar Mayer is within the food division (Kraft) of Phillip Morris. In other cases the data on various business units may be easier to find in their Annual Reports and 10K’s.
Good information (if available) on subsidiaries, divisions, plants, etc. can be found in the company’s 10K or Annual Report. If the information that you need is not in those documents, the next place to look would be the trade literature. Databases like Business & Industry, Factiva, and Lexis/Nexis can provide access to most trade literature.
Private Companies
Resources:
Explanation:
Private companies are not required to disclose any financial information. In most cases you can find sales figures in Dun & Bradstreet. Hoovers does cover private companies but only the largest. Newspapers and trade journals will be an important source of information on private companies. It is always a good strategy to search the local newspaper of the town where the company is located. Factiva, Lexis/Nexis, and Proquest Newspapers provide access to a large number of newspapers. Trade journals are also a rich resource for information on private companies. Business & Industry as well as Factiva provide good access to trade journals.
Prospecting
Resources:
EXPLANATION:
A job search often entails targeting a certain industry or geographic area or both. Dun & Bradstreet's Million Dollar Database and to a lesser extent Hoover’s can be manipulated to provide companies based on industry or geography.
Dun & Bradstreet's Million Dollar Database uses a modified Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) code arrangement. For example, if you are looking for a list of investment banks you would use “Quick Search #1”. In the “Industry Description Keyword” you would type in “investment” and click on the browse button. In the resulting search you would find investment bankers with the SIC code of 62110202. Select that SIC code and click OK. That would bring you back to the original search screen. You could perform the search at this point, or you could add additional selections (geography, size of company, etc.). Let us continue with this example, you are looking for investment banks in the Chicago area. Once you have added the 62110202 code you could continue and add Illinois as the state and Chicago as the city. The result would be 33 companies that fit your search profile. You can also modify the search by sales and/or number of employees.