Walker Management Library
Owen Graduate School of Management
401 21st. Avenue South
Nashville, TN 37203
Understanding a Company
To better understand a company, its performance in the market and the factors that affect it, you need to understand the whole picture of that universe. This includes :
- Company’s financials
- Products and services
- SWOT reports (Strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats)
- Industry pressures and challenges
- Competitors
- Analyst reports
While you should certainly look at the company’s website, note that will only help you gain insight into that company's opinion about itself. For other opinions about a company’s issues and performance, there are several types of library databases that will help. They are generally divided up by the type of information they contain although there are some exceptions such as Hoovers which gathers by company name several different types of information.
Company Overviews
- Hoovers This link opens in a new windowDetails on US and international companies, executives, market research reports, and trade publications. Includes financials, subsidiaries, and trade and business news.
Contains company profiles, analyst reports, SWOTs, and market research reports under the NAICS code link..
Example of SWOT analysis from Hoovers:
- FactSet This link opens in a new windowFactSet is a financial platform that provides comprehensive data and analytics on global financial markets, economic measures, and companies. Any current Vanderbilt student, faculty or staff member can access FactSet for academic and non-commercial use. Users must initially register for a personal account, which can take up to 7 days to be processed. For faster access, FactSet is available on the computer terminal in the UBM office in Calhoun Hall- no personal account needed.
- Refinitiv Workspace This link opens in a new window
Source of financial and economic data, news, and information. Provides access to analyst reports and select SDC data from the M&A section. Users must register for a personal account, which will be reset each semester. It is available to authorized users from Vanderbilt University for non-commercial, academic research. View, download, and printing limit for analyst reports and pdf documents of 150 pages per day, reset daily at midnight local time. Download limits for SDC data of 199 rows of excel data per day. Download limits for other types of data may apply.
