CI Links

There are links here covering the following topics. Many of the competitive intelligence links were submitted by some of the excellent students I have taught in MKTG 526. As with any set of links, these links are a work in progress.

Contents:

	Economic, government, and intelligence Data
	Legal information/Freedom of Information Act
	Newspapers and TV sites
	Looking for a job?
	Competitive intelligence
	And now for something completely different
	Other

Economic and Intelligence Data

American Demographics Magazine American Demographics Contains demographic information and consumer trends in the US.

American Export Register http://www.aernet.com/ maintains a database that boasts 45,000 companies and 5,000 products that are exported. You can search by either the name of the company or the name of the product. The service requires you to be registered, but most users can register for free.

Bloomberg Financial Network http://www.bloomberg.com This site has many useful features, such as columns from the researchers employed by Bloomberg. Another interesting feature is the news archive, which presents stories about a specific theme (for example technology or transportation) or about a particular firm; this service is available for a minimal fee of $2.50 per story. The site also contains a wealth of information concerning specific firms researched by Bloomberg reporters and columnists. Perhaps the most interesting component of Bloomberg.com is the set of links to Bloomberg Internet sites throughout the world. For example, the site contains links to Asian, German, and Italian Bloomberg sites; these sites are extremely valuable for finding information about a foreign market or company (assuming the researcher is fluent in that country’s language). (submitted by Frank Bugaris)

BRINT - A Business Researcher's Interests http://www.brint.com/interest.html is a comprehensive site that provides links and information on a broad variety of business-related topics. BRINT is an excellent starting place for any competitive intelligence search. It contains countless links to other sources of intelligence information, as well as reports and links on broad business issues.

Business.com http://business.com Developed by industry experts and library scientists, Business.com contains more than 400,000 listings within 25,000 industry, product, and service subcategories. You will be able to find general industry background or specifics about a particular product line. Business.com gives marketers a powerful new tool to maximize qualified traffic and lead generation by reaching business users at the precise moment they are seeking information. It also gives you a place to learn the names of the people within the competitors companies as well as the names of people to talk to in the associations. This will make you more confident when you are trying to talk about the industry . (submitted by Angela Hamm and Rebecca Carden)

The Business Strategy Search Specialist http://www.sookoo.com/ provides links from various areas of the business industry. Some of their most popular links are Power User (ceo, c-intelligence, meta sites, leadership), Cybraria (articles and journals on strategy, references, special collections), Community (regions, non profit, conferences), Brainia (big thinkers, Mintzberg, Michael Porter, strategic thinking), Services, EduGuru, Technology, and News. (submitted by Angela Johnson)

US Census Bureau http://www.census.gov/ provides free access to the most recent census information, as well as estimates conducted since the last census.

CEO Express http://www.ceoexpress.com/personal.asp is a smartly organized site that allows users to link to on-line journals, news sites, regulatory agencies, and trade associations in many industries.

The CIA World Factbook http://www.odci.gov/cia/publications/factbook/index.html is an interesting and informative summary of environmental factors which impact international businesses. The CIA Factbook is an excellent primer for students learning about unfamiliar markets.

Corporate Information http://www.corporateinformation.com is a comprehensive site that boasts over 15,000 research reports and over 20,000 company profiles. reports are also available in languages other than English. Through the use of its search engine, the site can also link the reader to 350,000 company profiles worldwide. (submitted by Humayun Chisthi)

Delphion Intellectual Property Network (IPN) www.patents.ibm.com. This site offers a searchable database of patent documents including US patents, European patents and applications, International patents and Japanese patent abstracts (this is a broader patent base that is available through Lexis-Nexis alone of the US Patent Office). Along with simple keyword search, IPN offers alternative searches by patent number, Boolean text, and advanced text that allows for multiple field searching. Several links to relating documents and additional services are also provided. (submitted by Alexander Weiss)

Dismal www.dismal.com The web page offers data about effects of (political) events on the industry as a whole and those especially affected. It shows market reactions and developments. The data and analysis cover national, international markets, and even regional markets. The information and tools can be especially helpful for people that want to establish a new business. Dismal.com is part of the "economy.com network" (submitted by Simone Bohr.)

Dun and Bradstreet http://www.dnb.com Contains links to many articles on research and economic outlook.

EDGAR http://www.sec.gov/edgarhp.htm EDGAR stands for the Electronic Data Gathering, Analysis, and Retrieval system. The SEC has created the EDGAR database to help increase the efficiency and fairness of the securities market in order to protect investors, while maintaining market integrity for the benefit of investors, corporations, and the economy. In order to do this, they require, by law, for corporations to file certain forms. Since January 1994, these filings have been entered into the publicly accessible EDGAR database. It performs automated collection, validation, indexing, acceptance, and forwarding of these corporate submissions (and others) with the SEC. Having this type of information online is supposed to help accelerate the receipt, acceptance, dissemination, and analysis of time-sensitive corporate information filed with the SEC agency. (submitted by Suzanne Romano)

EDGAR On-Line www.edgar-online.com This website is useful for locating SEC filings prior to their availability in the publicly-accessed SEC database (see above). SEC filings are normally accessible to the public 24-72 hours after the initial filing. Early access may also be available on the individual corporation’s website if known. The website features allow for searches by industry, sector, state, date and SEC form. Additional searches are available to categorize the data by company name, SEC form and time filed. (submitted by Barb Thompson)

Global Sources http://www.globalsources.com/gsol/owa/product.level1/HOME.HTM From this location, you can search for products and suppliers, register for free services or access useful trade information. This site can be use to attract buyers from around the world. Global Sources is described as a network of professionals with specific concentration in business services. (submitted by Jazmin Barreto)

Hoovers http://www.hoovers.com/ is an excellent source for collecting financial information on publicly traded companies. It features company capsules, key competitors, and links to SEC 10-A and 10-Q reports, links to articles on companies through newsalert. You can also track insider trades for companies, including who purchased/sold what when and for how much.

The IIlinois Institute for Rural Affairs http://www.iira.org Located at western Illinois University, the Illinois Institute for Rural Affairs' website is primarily geared towards facilitating smart growth and economic prosperity in rural Illinois. However, it does provide information seekers with an often overlooked source of current information about Illinois communities and economic development organizations in the state. The site contains an interactive database of Illinois communities and counties, allowing visitors to access specific retail trade information (sales data and pull factors), demographics, and thematic county maps. The real advantage here is that economists at the Institute have already combed through several data sources to shape useful nuggets of information for you. Such information may be used in a variety of ways; however, defining markets stands out as a particularly powerful one. Those developing competitor intelligence should also not overlook the online resource directory of economic development organizations in Illinois. (submitted by Christian Tscheschlok)

InFind http://www.InFind.com InFind touts itself as the first and only meta search engine that takes your query out to six of the most popular search engines on the Internet, simultaneously accepts the maximum allowable responses for each, removes redundancies, and then organizes the remaining list into understandable and useful groupings. A unique option in InFind is that can specify how long and how deep you want inFind to dig for results, anywhere from 1 to 30 seconds. Currently, inFind calls on WebCrawler, Lycos, Yahoo, Alta Vista, InfoSeek, and Excite. You will find this search engine’s method of organizing the results of your query very helpful because, rather than returning a results list sorted by how well each one matches your query, inFind clusters the sites it finds into thematic groups, which allows you to very quickly identify relevant and irrelevant sites to your search. In also seems to sift through and ignore many sites oriented toward advertising rather than providing information. (submitted by Christian Tscheschlok)

Intelligence Data www.intelligencedata.com is an excellent collection of trade association research including statistics, economic indicators, analysis, forecasts and surveys. It provides authoritative industry information, including premium content from the world's leading business publications, newsletters, and newspapers. It also allows you to create customized collections of in-depth research reports. (submitted by Nadine Jambor)

Johns Hopkins University http://milton.mse.jhu.edu:8001/library/gpml/full.html maintains a list of commonly requested government documents that is useful. Be patient, though, this site takes a while to load.

Journalist Express http://www.journalistexpress.com/ is a companion site to CEO Express. Among the more useful things found at this site are links to wire services, search engines, and international news sites.

Lexis-Nexis LEXIS®-NEXIS® Academic Universe is one of the services available through Lexis-Nexis. They have a searchable index that is very well maintained and allows for keyword searching in newspapers, journals, and even broadcast transcripts.

Multex Investor www.marketguide.com/home.ast - This site provides access to financial records of publically-traded corporations. One way the infomration can be used is to compare the income statement of one corporation against the income statement of another corporation in the same industry. (submitted by LaChelle Battle)

Organization for Economic Development and Cooperation http://www.oecdwash.org/ Contains data on unemployment, interest rates, consumer prices, GDP, etc.

The US Patent and Trademark Office http://www.uspto.gov/tmdb/index.html has a searchable database. Want to find out if a certain name is available for use? Check it here under "combined marks search." By entering a corporation name, you can see what names your competitors are protecting (for example, Dr. Dre (aka Andre Young) has filed a trademark under the name "Chronic Ice Tease" under the category of music, clothing, and alcoholic beverages.

Prizm http://www.fallschurch.claritas.com/YAWYL/Default.wjsp?System=WL PRIZM is a tool for lifestyle segmentation and analysis that defines every neighborhood in the U.S. in terms of demographically and behaviorally distinct types or "clusters." From the Marketing point of view, PRIZM offers a simple way to identify, understand, and target consumers. By identifying the neighborhoods types where existing customers are, accurate predictions can be made for the neighborhood types where prospective customers are. This information helps to define marketing plans that focus on the specific characteristics of customers of certain areas. From the competitive standpoint, PRIZM offers information that can help companies to identify the targets that the competitors are pursuing and understand the strategies that they are trying to achieve. (submitted by Maria Arenas)

Public Register’s Annual Report Service www.annualreportservice.com contains annual report information for over two thousand companies. The user can search for a company or scan an alphabetized list of companies. The annual report may be viewed on-line or a free hard copy can be requested. Links are provided to company websites and Edgar On-line. A link to the New York Stock Exchange is available for companies traded on the NYSE. The site lists each company’s stock symbol and the exchange on which it is traded. Data is also available by industry. The website is an excellent starting point to acquiring preliminary data. The link to Edgar On-line is very useful because it directly accesses the requested company data. (submitted by Dawna McClain)

Red Herring http://www.eocenter.com/redherring/ is another excellent source for financial information on publicly traded companies (particularly in technology-related areas), with links to other useful sources, like the US Patent and Trademark Office. Available information includes links for company profiles, analyst recommendations, stock quotes, summarized financial data, and SEC filings. They also provide links for patents and trademarks, press releases, competitors, insider trading, earnings, splits, ratios, stock discussion messages, and contact information.

SkyMinder Skyminder.com is an online product of Cribis Corporation, who is involved in global Business Information and Decision Support Systems. The Skyminder website provides its users with information for millions of companies and industries world-wide on Financials, Credit Information, Company Profiles, News and Tables, Industry Information, Industry Trends and Forecasts, Company List (list of companies with marketing data), Executive List (list of executives with marketing data on the company), and Market Research.
Skyminder is a "one-stop shopping" tool for business information on markets, partners, and competitors to help individuals and companies make more informed decisions in the global marketplace for public and private companies. (submitted by Tracy Creek)

US State Department US Department of State Contains information on most major nations worldwide, including information on conditions in other nations.

Wall Street Executive Library http://www.executivelibrary.comThe Wall Street ExecutiveLibrary.com was created for executive management to conduct business research in the areas of Current Events, Finance, Stocks, Economic Trends, Demographics, and other industry specific information. This information is well organized and easy to find. (submitted by Gerd Weissbach)

Wright Investor's Service http://www.profiles.wisi.com offers immediate links to real time corporate information for companies from one of 52 countries can be accessed through this site. Users can also search for world companies by way of the 22 different industrial categories on hand. Spanish and French are offer as alternative languages to English for users to utilize. The site allows users to search for a publicly traded company by name or ticker symbol. Finally, alphabetical groupings are listed so users may again have another method to search for a particular world company. (submitted by Brian Nagle)

Dr. Ed Yardeni’s Economics Network http://www.yardeni.com/ Dr. Yardeni is the Chief Global Economist and Investment Strategist of Deutsche Bank Securities in New York. The site offers free economic data and links to related sites. Topic areas on the home page include global investments, on-line chart rooms, global economy, monetary & fiscal policies, economic indicators, demography (consumer & marketing), knowledge centers, economic history, political economy & e-conomy, capitalism, and other Internet resources. Most have pull down boxes for further delineation of the specific topic area. Moving through the site is quite user friendly because the home page contains sixty-three “shortcuts." (submitted by Stan Lipinski.)

Legal Information/Freedom of Information Act

The Society for Professional Journalists http://www.spj.org/foia/foiresources/letters/index.htm can provide guidance to you on making a request for documents through the Freedom of Information Act. Sample letters and useful tips are provided.

The Illinois Judicial System Online, Office of the Reporter of Decisions http://www.state.il.us/court/search.htm maintains a searchable index (since 5/1/96) of Illinois Appellate and Supreme Court decisions. You can see if the Appellate or Supreme courts have heard any cases on individual companies by search under the company name.

Brief Reporter, LLC http://www.briefreporter.com/srchgen.pl?s=1635493 has a very useful search engine which allows you to search for federal or state court cases concerning specific topics or company names. Searching is free, but downloading the actual brief incurs a charge.

FindLaw LawCrawler http://lawcrawler.findlaw.com/ is another search engine for finding court decisions.

Also, see Lexis-Nexis above.

Looking for aJob?

Monster.com
CareerBuilder
CareerMosaic
CareerPath.com
JOBTRAK
The World Wide Web Employment Office
Yahoo! Classifieds

Competitive Intelligence Links

Links By Selected Industries

AEROSPACE/AVIATION

AeroworldNet http://www.aeroworldnet.com/companie.htm is a listing of the names, phone numbers, and links to the home pages (where available) of aerospace companies. There is also a section on news and an electronic bulletin board for discussions about the aerospace industry.

International Air Transport Association (IATA) http://www.iata.org is the counterpart to the ICAO (International Civil Aviation Organization). The IATA web site provides information concerning the world air transport industry. Some parts are available for free. But to receive a whole surveys or study you have to pay a small fee. Content: Aviation links, press releases and speeches, aviation information and research, financial information, forecasts, statistics, airports, market research, business traveler research, aviation consultancy services. (submitted by Philip Soukup)

AUTOMOTIVE

Ward's www.wardsauto.com/companies is a good source for finding suppliers to the auto industry. You can search by the type of component and receive a listing of companies that manufacture the selected components.

AutoIntel http://www.autointell.com provides basic intelligence about several aspects of the automotive industry. The news section is updated daily and weekly on a wide range of automotive related subjects. A note of caution, the news articles are very industry specific and can be somewhat hard to follow unless you are very familiar with the auto industry. The site contain some data on companies in the auto industry, broken down by manufacturers, suppliers and consultants. There is some basic financial data here, but unfortunately, it is two years old. Overall this section has only very basic information. But, if you know nothing about the auto industry, it’s a good place to start for company listings and news items.

CONVENTIONS

Worldwide Convention Centers http://www.iacconline.org/dir.centers.cfm This is a search engine offered the website of International Association of Conference Centers (IACC), an international organization dedicated to promoting understanding and awareness of the conference center industry. IACC’s global directory provides links to over 400 conference centers and scores of management companies in North America, Australia, and Europe. Its Conference Center Directory offers detailed information on any of its global conference center members. By narrowing down screening criteria (by geographic area, meeting criteria, or keyword), market researchers can locate a specific one or all conference centers either locally, nationally, or internationally. A "press release" section consists of IACC releases and member releases, offering direct information on newly industrial developments and trends on conference center marketing, public relations, operations, designs, and other areas of interest are released timely on the website, and competitors’ newly management, technical, and marketing actions. (submitted by Luka Zhao)

ELECTRONICS

The Dutch Electronics Directory http://www.ce-data.nl/ded/ is a directory of links to the web sites of electronics companies around the world (not just those in Holland)

HIGH-TECH

CorpTech www.corptech.com is a directory of 50,000 high tech companies. It includes information on both public and private companies. Particularly useful features include: Product finder, and the use the name of the product or search by industry to identify competitors. CorpTech also links you to search engines that provides newslinks through TechWeb, InfoSeek, Ziff-Davis Net, Pathfinder, archives of 39 American City Business Journals, and CNNfn.

The Tennessee Department of Economic and Community Development http://www.state.tn.us/ecd/tech_search.htm maintains a searchable database of "technology and knowledge-intensive firms"

LEISURE

Golfcourse.com www.golfcourse.com provides a useful search-engine for golf courses. For example it is possible to search for a course within a certain distance from a city, for course difficulty, fees, etc. Secondly, there is information about the individual golf courses, like type, club facilities, related articles, ratings, tees, fees and much more. (submitted by Tobias Ketterle)

Regional Directories

AFRICA

Africa Business Direct http://www.africabusinessdirect.com is the all-business portal for Africa. Its mission is to expand African business globally. The website gathers links to other websites that gives a lot of information about trade, finance, logistics, and infrastructure in Africa, especially South Africa. If you are planning to do a business in Africa, I recommend you to browse this website first. It contains seven (7) groups of information center, which are news center, travel center, market intelligence center, trade center, investment center, franchise center, and training center. Some of websites that are linked by Africa Business Direct are the World Bank (to find economic indicators), Dun & Bradstreet (to find credit analysis), and the CIA World Fact Book (to find country profile). You have to be patient because the connection to this website is slow. (submitted by Robertus Purba)

CANADA

Strategis http://strategis.ic.ga.ca/ is produced by Industry Canada and provides over 20,000 business and consumer links to various business sites. Registration is not necessary to search the site, which accommodates searches by product or industry, assisting in investigation into a particular Canadian market. Examples of information given are: imports and exports of manufacturing parts, government inspection procedures, and company profiles. (submitted by Nicole Roberts)

EUROPE

Eurostat - Statistical Office of the European Commision http://europa.eu.int/comm/eurostat/ Eurostat publishes around 140 news releases a year. Eurostat offers up-to-date summaries of the main results of statistical surveys, studies and analyses. Eurostat provides the main key indicators on EU15 and Euro-zone, the Member States and their partners. Panorama of the European Union: This collection highlights the features and trends of a multisectoral theme or a sectoral sub-theme. Catalogues and databases afford rapid access to concise information on Eurostat's products and services. (submitted by Dirk Hein)

INDIA

Indiaccess http://www.indiaccess.com/-busns.html is a directory of companies in India in the following industries: computer hardware, computer software, electrical & electronics goods, exporters, real estate, silks, marble and granite, seafood, rice and grain, leather, jewelry and gems, carpets and rugs, knitwear and readymade apparel, handlooms and handicrafts, engineering goods, travel and tourism, and medicine. Limited information is available on individual companies, but you may find the listings of competitors useful.

RUSSIA

Interregional Marketing Centers Network www.marketcenter.ru The Network of Interregional Marketing Centers (IMC) has been initiated by the Moscow Government on August 1, 1997. Commercially important information is collected by region and is available by means of the central web server of the IMC Network (www.marketcenter.ru). This site could be useful in collecting basic information about Russian companies in different industries and in different regions (address, industry, number of employees, names of key persons, produced product, contacts). There are main divisions of that site: companies information, commercial offers, analytics, investment projects, catalog of goods, and retail prices on regional markets. You can search using different criteria: geographical location, company's industry, produced product. (submitted by Sergey

TAIWAN

The Taiwan Electronic Directory http://www.electronic.com.tw/right.html provides links to companies in electronics and computer industries within Taiwan.

UK/IRELAND

Applegate First Directory http://www.applegate.co.uk/index.htm is a directory of 8,500 companies in the UK and Ireland in the following industries: agribusiness, electronics, engineering, oil and gas, plastics and rubber, and recruitment services.

And now for something completely different...

David Letterman Top Ten Lists of David Letterman

Other

VALS Questionnaire

MARKET RESEARCH QUESTIONS