Library Briefings

Back to business

A new set of databases expands access to industry and company research

Over the course of the summer and early fall, Northwestern University Library added two new subscriptions to market research reports and data. In the past, this often elusive and costly information could be a challenge for academic researchers to obtain. Now, through the Electronic resources site, Northwestern students, faculty, and staff can access both Marketresearch.com Academic and Mintel Market Research for select reports covering markets and industries for the United States as well as foreign countries.

Marketresearch.com Academic includes several hundred reports focused primarily on U.S. markets covering business services, consumer goods, food and beverage, demographics, heavy industry, life sciences, and technology and media. It is a secondary provider of reports published by companies such as Kalorama Information, Packaged Facts, and Specialists in Business Information. Many of the reports are more than 200 pages long and contain charts, tables, and graphs. These full studies are available on MarketResearch.com Academic within 12 months of release to corporate clients.

The database also includes a line of reports called "MarketLooks" that are available within the same month of their publication. These reports are more concise summaries of the full studies and include many of the same industries and markets. Marketresearch.com Academic is browsable by topic and by keyword.

Mintel Market Research, provided by Mintel International Group in the United Kingdom, offers market research reports focused on European, Asian and North American markets. While Marketresearch.com is a secondary provider, Mintel is the publisher as well as the provider of its own reports. The scope of this database includes reports covering the following industries: automotive, beauty, clothing and footwear, consumer lifestyles, drink and tobacco, electrical goods, food and foodservice, health and well-being, holidays and travel, household, leisure, life stages, media, personal finances, retail, technology and a category for miscellaneous reports.

Mintel Market Research is browsable by country or by category/industry. For example, if you click on Leisure, you are then given the choice of Entertainment, Gambling, Home and Garden, Pubs Clubs Restaurants, or Sports. Clicking on Entertainment retrieves a list of reports on topics such as CDs, cinemas, DVD rentals, music retailing, Hispanic entertainment, and other topics. A report on cinemas includes sections such as the introduction, market drivers, market size and segmentation, supply structure, retail distribution, and the consumer. All reports are searchable by keyword. First-time users should create a login profile that can be used for the first access as well as subsequent sessions.

From Fortune 500 to Mom ‘n’ Pop: Look up nearly any business in the United States with Reference USA

Reference USA is a new electronic resource that replaces the American Business Disc in the Library. Quick Search can be used to look up records for more than 12 million businesses in the United States, to find information such as location, lines of business, number of employees, annual sales, credit rating, and branch or headquarters information. You can also search Reference USA to identify businesses or create lists of businesses based on multiple criteria. Use the Custom Search and click on Yellow Pages to limit to an SIC (Standard Industry Classification) code or to a product or service type. Limit geographically, by business size, by public or private designation, or by branch or headquarters location.

A Quick Search on Home Depot, for instance, yields a list of over 1,600 businesses nationwide. However, a limit of this search to Chicago finds 9 listings. A Custom Search limit on SIC code 206401 (candy manufacturers) and sales of at least $100 million yields 28 business listings, including Hershey, Nestle, Brach, M&M Mars, Fannie May, and others.

Reference USA also includes health institutions such as hospitals and federal, state, county and municipal government listings. Information is compiled from more than 5,600 Yellow Page and Business White Page telephone directories, annual reports, 10-Ks and other SEC information. Also consulted are Continuing Medical Education (CME) directories; federal, state, provincial and municipal government data; Chamber of Commerce information; leading business magazines, trade publications, newsletters, major newspapers; industry and specialty directories; and postal service information.

--Jeannette Moss