Related Guides
- Industry AssociationsA list of selected trade associations with useful data and resources, compiled by BU Libraries.
Locate an Industry Overview
- Industry Survey LocatorOur in-house database by topic, the Industry Survey Locator is the simplest way of locating an industry survey either online through our databases or in print. These answer many of your questions: market segmentation, competitive landscape, forecasts and professional associations.
The Industry Survey Locator includes the following surveys:
MarketLine (formerly Datamonitor) Industry Profiles
Hoover’s Industry Snapshots
Mergent Industry Reports
Mintel
Standard & Poor’s Industry Surveys
Value Line Investment Surveys
NAICS Classifications
The North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) is a standard for classifying businesses used by the statistical agencies of Canada, Mexico, and the United States. It is used to collect and analyze data about the economies of these three countries.
Learning your industry's NAICS code can help you navigate many of the resources listed here.
Industry News
Every industry has a variety of trade journals that write about that particular field; they are helpful resources for industry news, trends, and statistics. The following databases index thousands of trade journals and business magazines:
- ProQuest One Business This link opens in a new window
ProQuest One Business combines multiple ProQuest business information databases including ABI-Inform, Accounting, Tax & Banking and Entrepreneurship and contains more than 130 million documents. Content in this database also covers over 2,400 journals and magazines, several hundred news sources, thousands of ebooks, videos and company, industry and country reports.
- Business Source Complete This link opens in a new window
Provides bibliographic and full text content, including indexing and abstracts for scholarly business journals back to 1886 and full text journal articles in all disciplines of business, including marketing, management, accounting, finance and economics. The database full text content includes investment research reports, industry reports, market research reports, company profiles, SWOT analyses. Sources covered by this database include Economist Intelligence Unit country reports.
- Factiva This link opens in a new window
Provides worldwide full text access to local and regional newspapers, trade publications, business newswires, press release wires, media transcripts, news photos, business-rich websites, investment analyst reports, market research reports, country and regional profiles, company profiles, historical market data.
List Companies and Compare
Many of the industry overviews you can find in the Industry Survey Locator and its component databases include lists of industry leaders and rankings. To find a more comprehensive list of companies by industry, use the following databases:
- Company Dossier through NexisUniClick on “Create a Company List” tab to create list of international or U.S. companies by industry, geographic area and revenue. Rank U.S. companies by sales.
- Data Axle Reference Solutions This link opens in a new windowCreate a custom search by company size, number of employees, industry, geographical areas. Use the yellow page function to narrow down to the industry you want.
Annual Reports and 10Ks
- Mergent Online This link opens in a new windowThis database will compare company against company using ratios and financial metrics, access company SEC filings like 10-k’s as well as annual reports and allows you to export financials into Excel.
SWOT Analysis
- MarketLine Company Profiles This link opens in a new windowProvide profiles of companies worldwide. Often includes a Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threads (SWOT) analysis.
