CMBUS 4471 - Business of New Media - Kosterich: Company Research

Before you start researching, make sure you know:

• the correct spelling of your company name
• if the company is public, private, parent, or subsidiary
• the ticker of your company
• the company's primary and secondary SIC, NAICS, or other industry codes 
• the keywords used to describe the company's industry and markets   

All of this can be found in a good company profile.  

If your company is a subsidiary, you will probably need to search for a SWOT report on the parent company. Look for reports that include significant information about the subsidiary you are researching. You can do that by adding the subsidiary company as a keyword to your search.

Many of our databases default to sorting items by "relevance" first; if you want to find the most recent results, you can change the sorting order to "most recent" first.

Search Recommendation

Type your company name or ticker in the search box. An option for the Company Profile should be provided; if so, select it.

If not, click on the search icon (magnifying glass). When you see the results, deselect the default options (Full text) and (Peer-reviewed). Select the Company Profile now listed, or narrow by other information type using the boxes on the right.

TIP  -  You may find that the SWOT report in Gale Business Insights is a bit old. If so, take note of the publisher of the report and search Nexis Uni to see if there is a more recent report by that publisher.

Nexis Uni SWOT search Options

Enter Nexis Uni and log into your personal account (if you do not already have an account, create an account)

Try it # 1 - Select Companies from the top toolbar, and type Company Name and SWOT

Try it # 2 - Select Sources from the top toolbar, and type Globaldata in the search box on the left and click on the search icon (magnifying glass).

Click on "Add all these as search filters". Then enter your company name in the top search box and click on the search icon (magnifying glass).

Try it # 3 - Type Company Name AND SWOT in the main search box.

Search Recommendation

Type your company name in the first search box; type the word SWOT in the box below it. Sort your result by newest first.

Search Recommendation

Type your company name in the first search box; type the word SWOT in the box below it. Sort your result by newest first. Limit by company name or publication title.

What information have you found via a free web search or website like Google, Yahoo Finance, or other?

There are many good business information resources available via the free web. It is your responsibility to look critically at those sources and use only information that is reputable, accurate, unbiased, timely, and appropriate for your academic assignments. If you cannot write a citation for a source, then you should not choose to use the information provided by the source. 

This library instruction session will focus primarily on information sources and databases available via the Library Website. 

In the United States, a public company is legally required to submit its financials to the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in order to trade stock.

The SEC maintains a database of those financial records and makes them available for free to the public. The database is called EDGAR.

Private companies are not required to submit financials to the SEC, so their financials will be much more difficult to find.

Industries are number-coded to facilitate data management.

There are several coding systems, SIC and NAICS are the most common.

Use the websites below to explore these classification systems. 

Grace Phillips, Science & Technology Librarian

gphillips16@fordham.edu (one-on-one zoom consultations provided on request)

Jane Suda, Head of Reference & Information Services

jsuda@fordham.edu (one-on-one zoom consultations provided on request)