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Company & Industry Information

A University of Lethbridge Library guide to finding Company & Industry information.

Company Information

Investment services provide major reference sources for finding company information. These sources provide detailed information about companies and are used in real-world business research for making investment and other business decisions.

Useful Websites

Don't forget...

... to check the 'articles' tab to search article databases for specific company information, too!

Competitor Information

Many of the databases mentioned here provide a list of competitors, but it's likely imperfect, generated based on NAICS or SIC codes. If you have a suspicion that the competitors are incomplete or incorrect, go with your gut and find other ways to discover them, based on your own familiarity with the industry, and comparing other companies by sales/revenue or market share. You can also find more like-businesses in trade & business news publications, tradeshow exhibitor directories, membership directories, and business to business sites.

Financial Information

Trouble finding your company?

  • Determine whether the company is public or private.
  • Be sure you are researching the official name of the company. Many companies have popular names that may not be listed anywhere. For example, 3M is really Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing.
  • If the company is a personal name or includes initials, e.g. Walt Disney or H. J. Heinz, look under each part of the name. Various sources are not consistent in how names are treated.
  • If the company name is a common word such as Apple or Amazon and you tend to retrieve articles about fruit (Apple) or rivers (Amazon), try adding in Inc. or Corp. after the name. 
  • If you are researching a subsidiary, expand your research to include the parent corporation. For example, Google is under its parent company Alphabet. 
  • Companies sometimes change their names, so look under multiple possible company names. For example, cigarette maker Phillip Morris changed its name to Altria. 
  • Very small or very new companies may not appear in the standard sources, particularly print sources, so broaden your search. Look for news articles and a company website. Use any regional or specialized industry directories which may be available.
  • See if the database you’re searching within has a specific search tool or area to search for company names – Euromonitor, Factiva, and others have special sections or filters to search by company names. In the list of results, there may be a way to limit results by company, as well.
  • Make sure the source you’re searching includes private or international companies. Some sources like Mergent only have publicly traded companies, so smaller companies aren’t included.

(thanks to Business Reference and Services Section of the American Library Association)