Company research is a key skill across business disciplines. Beyond school research, this skill is important when you're considering a job change, preparing for an interview, trying to make investment decisions, or doing business with a company. Some resources and things to consider when researching a company:
- Is this company public or private? It can be more difficult to find information about private companies
- Mergent is an easy-to-use database to gather basic background information about a company, including basic sales, contact information and the company's status as public or private
- Private company financial information is less likely to be available, but estimates may be included in ReferenceUSA or free-trial web resources such as Crunchbase or PitchBook
- Is the company in the news lately? Try these sources for news, magazines and journal articles:
- SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) Analysis reports are available for many companies through Business Source Complete and provide a good overview of the company's current environment.
