Business Intelligence

Tip: It may seem obvious, but it's always a good idea to start with the company’s web site. When you get there, poke around a bit and take a look at what information they offer, but pay special attention to listings of new products and job openings. New products listings can indicate growth and the employment listings can give you some idea about what is going on with the firm. To gain meaningful insights it is most useful to visit the site regularly and track trends over time.

Tip: For preliminary information on a particular market, you might want to start your search by joining words or phrases that relate to the leaders in the market. For example, to search for comparative market information on servers, you would want to try joining “RedHat Enterprise” with “Windows server.”

Tip: Can’t find a company's Web Site?? Try Google first, and if that does not work, then try the Yahoo! directory and narrow your search to an appropriate directory category. Additionally, many of the major search engines include a section entitled “Company Profiles” (or words to that effect). Try restricting your search to these categories. Also try narrowing your search using the .com extension, which will restrict the search to commercial sites or try using the “domain” or “URL” search options when searching by company name. Don't forget that companies outside they U.S. may have elected to place their primary site on a country-specific domain, e.g., ".com.au" for Australia

Tip: If you are looking for information on manufacturing concerns, sites like Alibaba.com are very useful -- particularly for China-based manufacturing operations.

Launchpad's Picks

rating	resource	review
	Nexis	One of the best aggregations of business intelligence on the Net. It is a subscription service.
	Hoovers Online	General business info & news.
	Edgar Online	Up-to-the-second corporate information directly from the Securities and Exchange Commission database of corporate filings.
	CFO News	Corporate Financials Online lets you keep track of all the news announcements and investor information issued by public companies in one spot.