Business Resources for the Undergraduate Business Minor

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 Hoover's, which gathers several different types of information by company name.

Using the company stock symbol helps you find consistent company analysis from resource to resource by making sure you are comparing the same company, and not any subsidiaries.