Company Research
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SWOT Analysis
SWOT = Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats. or TOWS Matrix is a variant of the classic business tool, SWOT Analysis. TOWS and SWOT are acronyms for different arrangements of the words Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats.
By analyzing the external environment (threats and opportunities), and your company internal environment (weaknesses and strengths), you can use these techniques to think about the strategies of your organization, your department or your team. You can also apply them in thinking about a process, a marketing campaign, or even your own skills and experience.
Analysis of these 4 qualities provides a good overview of a company's current and future prospects. SWOT analyses can be found in the databases listed below.
If no SWOT analysis is available for your company, look at a competitor or an industry analysis. The SWOT factors are often quite similar for companies in the same industry sector.
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Formerly known as "Business & Company Resource Center", this database provides company histories, market share articles, business ranking annual, company profiles and industry profiles.
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Search a company name; then from the results screen, choose SWOT Analysis on the left menu bar.
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Use this database to locate trends, challenges, forecasts, financial information and more for over 200 industries, particularly for small industries. Check the State & Province tab for industry and economic insight, employment and real estate trends for the 50 U.S. states and 10 Canadian provinces.
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IBISWorld Industry Research Reports
IBISWorld contains reports on 723 industries by North America Industry Classification System. These reports contain trends, statistics and analysis on industry growth. Each study examines details such as entry barriers, operating cost structure, technology and systems. (UT Libraries only have access to US Industry Reports module).
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Mintel Oxygen offers market research reports covering US and International food service marketplaces. Each report gives market-share size and trends, and consumer profiles. Reports may be downloaded as RTF and tabular data may also be saved as CSV files. In order to use Mintel Oxygen you must agree to the Mintel Academic Agreement
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Plunkett Research Online provides industry analysis and market research for vital industry sectors. For each sector, the database gives market research and trend analysis, statistic information, profiles of leading companies, association and organizations lists
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Small Business Resources Center
This database provides information on how to start, finance or manage small business. Resources include sample business plans, how to guides, articles and websites.
Theories for Situation Analysis
Situation analysis refers to a collection of methods that are used to analyze an organization's internal and external environment and to understand the organization's capabilities, customers, and business environment.
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There are different business analytics tools for Situation Analysis:
5C analysis - is a method in analyzing the market environment. It is to gain information on the internal, macro-environmental, and micro-environmental factors within the business environment. 5C is the extension of 3C [Customer, Corporation and Competitors]: Company, Customer, Competitors, Collaborators and Climate.
SWOT analysis or TOWS matrix - is for the Strengths and Weaknesses of a company (internal environment) as well as the Opportunities and Threats within the market (external environment).
Porter's Five Forces - scans the environment for threats from competitors and identifies problems early on to minimize threats imposed by competitors. PEST Analysis - scans the macro-environmental factors: Political, Economic, Social and Technological analysis. Some analysts added Legal factor and Environment factor to become PESTLE Analysis.
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Michael E Porter Five Forces Analysis
Michael Porter, a Harvard Business school professor developed a framework that models an industry as being influenced by five forces. In his book "Competitive Strategy: Techniques for Analyzing Industries and Competitors", Five Forces Analysis is a framework of five forces to determine the competitive intensity and therefore attractiveness of a market for industry analysis and business strategy development.
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You can use the model to better understand the industry context in which a firm operates.
Diagram of Porter's 5 Forces (http://www.quickmba.com/strategy/porter.shtml)
Bear in mind that the Five Forces analysis does not supersede SWOT analysis. Five Force analysis focuses specifically on the industry in which a company operates while in a SWOT analysis focuses primarily on the company itself (the strengths and weaknesses of a company are analyzed relative to the entire industry, while the threats and opportunities originate primarily within the industry).
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On Competition by Michael E. Porter
Call Number: HF1414 .P67 1998
ISBN: 0875847951
Publication Date: 1998-09-01
Organized around three primary categories: Competition and Strategy: Core Concepts, The Competitiveness of Location, and Competitive Solutions to Societal Problems, this collection of articles develops the building blocks that define competitive strategy as we know it. It addresses the important issues of competition.
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The Competitive Advantage by Michael E. Porter
Call Number: HD41.P668 1985
ISBN: 0029250900
Publication Date: 1985-01-01
Competitive Advantage introduces a tool that may be used to diagnose and enhance competitive advantage: the value chain. Value-chain analysis allows the manager to separate the underlying activities a firm performs in designing, producing, marketing, and distributing its product or service. It is these activities from which competitive advantage ultimately stems. By showing how all the firm's activities can be examined in this integrated way, Porter provides a practical perspective on competitive strategy.
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Philip Kolter's Marketing Management - 4P/7P
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Kotler on marketing : how to create, win, and dominate markets by Philip Kotler
Call Number: HF5415.13 .K638 1999
ISBN: 0684850338
Publication Date: 1999-04-21
Philip Kolter, a professor of International Marketing at the Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University, presented the Marketing Mix theory. The theory comprises of Product, Price, Place and Promotion. When the theory puts into intangible services, the marketing mix for a service has three additional elements: People, Process and Physical Evidence.
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A Framework for Marketing Management by Philip Kotler
Call Number: HF5415.13 .K636 2001
ISBN: 0130185256
Publication Date: 2000-07-19
Company Ratios
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Select Companies/Markets from the top green options bar, then Company and search by name or ticker. From your results, choose Financial Results and then Key Ratios from the drop down box. Ratios are available for latest 5 years. Alternatively, select Reports and choose Ratio Comparison. Includes ratios for industry, sector and S&P 500.
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Mergent Online (formerly FIS Online) is a database of corporate information covering over 22,000 US and foreign public companies.
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Search for company, then select Key Ratios on the left menu bar. Ratios available for 10 years. Limited to 2 simultaneous users.
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Nexis Uni
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Choose Get Company Info, then search for a company name. From result, choose Financial Information from the left menu and scroll
Industry Ratios
Financial ratios are used to compare a company against an industry average or other companies in order to benchmark or measure a company’s performance. Industry ratios are also useful when creating the financial components of a business plan.
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Almanac of Business and Financial Ratios
Call number: Ref. HF5681 .R25T68
Available in paper only in Reference . Organized by NAICS codes. Has operating and financial ratios for up to 12 asset size groups within each industry. Covers from 1972 - current.
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Annual Statement Studies
Call number: Ref. HF5681 .B2R64
From Robert Morris Associates, available in paper only in Reference. Organized by NAICS codes. Each industry is presented in several asset size groups and ratios are divided into upper, median, and lower quartiles. Balance sheet and income data are also given for each industry segment. Available for 1965-current.
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Provides financial ratios (solvency, efficiency, profitability) for several hundred industry categories and is now integrated in Mergent Intellect. Information before 2015 can be found in Mergent Archives.
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Business & Economics Portfolio
Research Insights & Top-Line Indicators including Business Cycle Indicators, Consumer Confidence Index, Employment Trends Index, and Measure of CEO Confidence.
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Industry ratios reports can be run for up to 20 user-specified data categories by using the "RV" (relative value) function. This resource is only available at the College of Business.
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IBISWorld Industry Research Reports
It provides industry reports for over 700 U.S. Industries. Select an Industry Report and then on the Table of Contents tab, on the left click on Key Statistics to get to the Industry Ratios.
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NetAdvantage
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Provides key data on more than 50 industries from Advertising to Transportation. Search Tip: Choose the [Industries] tab at the top of the screen and select an Industry Survey from the listing.
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Includes ratios for more than 90 industries.
Search Tip: Under "Quick Index", click on [Standard Edition], and then click on [Look-up Industry].
Search by Industry name or browse the listing.
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The Yahoo Industry Center is a free resource that has some industry information. The industry browser allows you to browse industries by performance rankings, including ROE, P/E ratio, market cap, price change, price to book value, profit margin, price to book value, long term debt, and more.