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Purpose of this Guide

Impressive business and marketing plans are well researched. You have to understand your competitors to be competitive. You'll need to locate suppliers and distributors. Use this guide to get hard-to-find company info.

Searching for Basic Company Information

Researching an industry or service, and looking for a list of companies? Try the following tools:

If you're looking for a supplier, manufacturer or distributor, search the following sites to find companies by product.

Looking for information on a local business? Check these directories for address and contact information.

Company Overviews, Histories and SWOT Analyses

Market research companies produce detailed company reports that may include overviews, histories, SWOT Analyses, financial data, and more. Try the following databases to find these valuable sources.

Finding Annual Reports

A company's annual report often contains an account of the company's history, services and latest developments. Search official filings directly (below) or just Google the company's name and "annual report."

Finding Company Financials

Often you'll want to know the financial performance of a company, either to assess it as a competitor to your own company, or to understand the risks involved in investing in that company. The databases in this list provided company reports that include financial data.

For private businesses, try:

Market Share of Companies

Knowing your competitor's (or your client's) market share is important, but finding market share for a company can be difficult. Try the following:

More often than not, you will not be able to find market share statistics for your company. In this case, you can calculate a rough market share using the database and instructions listed below.