BUSA 2300: Entrepreneurship - The Business Planning Process: Company and Competitors

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

Hoovers 
Contains company profiles, analyst reports, SWOTs, and market research reports under the NAICS code link..

• Search by Company Name
• Once on the results page, click on the link for your correct company
• Use the left hand menu to select specfic pieces of information on that company.

Example of SWOT analysis from Hoover's:

While many U.S. companies are privately held, financial data is often available for both public and private companies.  This can appear in annual reports and SEC (U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission) required financial filings for public companies.  These can be found in many library databases as listed on the library database orientation spreadsheet.