LibGuides: GB320: Café -- Spring 2024 -- Sections 7-9 &amp; 10-12 (Bradley, Young, Smalley, Leahy, &amp; Middleton): Competitor Research

Competitor Research

First, identify companies in the industry.

Look at Industry Information. What other companies are prominent in the industry?
Look at articles in Trade Publications. What other companies are in the industry that are not necessarily major players being talked about? What companies are producing similar products?

Library Databases

Gale Business: Insights This link opens in a new window
Gale Business: Insights provides in-depth information on U.S. and international businesses, industries and products. Included are company and industry profiles, financial data, investment reports, business periodicals, interactive charting and comparison tools, and more.
Business Source Complete (EBSCO) This link opens in a new window
Business Source Complete provides coverage in business disciplines including marketing, management, management information systems, production and operations management, accounting, finance and economics. It includes full text for more than 3600 journals, including 1900 peer-reviewed titles. Also included are full-text case studies, company and industry profiles, country reports, executive and analyst interviews, market research reports and SWOT analyses.
Euromonitor Passport This link opens in a new window
Euromonitor Passport provides business intelligence on selected Industries, Countries & Consumers, Companies, and Geographies, and comprehensive tools for analysis across datasets. Each category includes in-depth reports, analyst comments, statistics and external sources. New reports, analyses and comments are added daily, while industry reports are updated annually. Historical and forecasted date coverage varies by country, within a broad range of 1977 to five-year projections. Users will have to fill out a short registration form the first time they access Euromonitor. Faculty & Staff members please list your department under "Course".
Nexis Uni This link opens in a new window
Nexis Uni, formerly called LexisNexis Academic, contains a variety of news and specialized sources. Users may search for: regional, national, and international news publications and wire services; US state and federal cases and statutes; company profile and dossier information by company name or ticker symbol; country profiles, risk information, and news; patent information; and biographical and news information on public figures. Topical pages include Business, Criminal Justice, and Political Science. Users may register for an account to save searches and bookmark documents, add notes, collaborate with other users, and set up alerts to track new content.
Plunkett Research Online This link opens in a new window
Plunkett Research Online (PRO) offers industry/market trends and statistics for 28 unique industry groupings, company profiles, a directory of professional organizations, and information useful for job searching. Users also can search and print Plunkett's proprietary Industry Almanacs. Data is updated weekly and easily printable. Thousands of company profiles can be searched by company name or keywords.
PrivCo This link opens in a new window
PrivCo provides private company financial data including M&A activity, investor information, private equity and venture capital data. It covers over 225,000 private companies, 11,000 investors, and over 80,000 private market M&A deals and funding rounds. Database strengths include the ability to search by niche industry for private companies, and to find specific investors for targeted industries.
Mergent Intellect This link opens in a new window
Mergent Intellect offers comprehensive data on companies, industries, demographics, consumer lifestyles, people, and jobs. Among its specialized offerings are: information on over 245 million domestic and international public and private companies; First Research industry profiles; Nielsen PRIZM demographic and consumer reports; North American census data, searchable by geographic area; residential contact and lifestyle data for U.S. residents; and job listings for companies in the U.S. and Canada. Users may also access D&B Key Business Ratios from this database.

Data Axle

Data Axle contains detailed information on U.S. businesses. Data Axle records contain contact information, corporation information, company descriptions, management directories, and competitors. The custom search feature in Data Axle allows users to set up a personalized search form to help identify and compare companies. Custom search options allow users to limit search results by business type, geography, business size and ownership type.

After launching Data Axle, click on the link for "US Businesses" and then the tab for "Advanced Search".

On the Advanced Search page you can build a search that includes limiters for geography (zip code and radius from zip code), SIC/NAICS code (Business Type), and company size.
Click on Update Count (blue) then View Results (green).

Data Axle lets you download/export up to 500 company records at a time into excel. You can slice the data even further by looking at the other options available in the Advanced Search, just remember to Update Count when you add criteria before View Results.

Please remember that brand names and company names are not always the same and that not all of these companies are competitors.

Data Axle This link opens in a new window
Data Axle (formerly ReferenceUSA) contains detailed company descriptions, corporate family trees, management directories, and competitor information for more than 20 million U.S. businesses. Users may build custom searches to help identify and compare companies. Custom search options include business type, geography, business size and ownership type.