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BADM 370

This guide is intended to help you successfully complete marketing research projects in BADM 370, BADM 476 and other courses by providing specific paths to the kinds of information you will need to complete course assignments.

Welcome!

Your assignments will require you to find specific pieces of information about a company.

Each section of this course guide is designed to show you where and how to find information for your marketing project.

Introduction to Company Research

OBTAINING COMPANY INFORMATION

  • START by finding a "company profile." 
    • A company profile provides information about a company in a single document.

  • After collecting information from a company profile, fill in gaps in your knowledge about a company by using the rest of the sources of company information described on this page.

Below, you will see step-by-step instructions on how to find:

1. Find address, NAICS codes, and description of company

2. Find company profile, history, CEO, brands/products

3. Find financials of a company

4. Find recent news about a company

1. NAICS codes and address

Company address and NAICS codes

NAICS stands for North American Industry Classification System. In conjunction with Canada and Mexico, this is a governmental database used for analysis by businesses and industry players. To find your NAICS code, go to the source: https://www.naics.com/search/. If you can’t find it there, try the LexisUni approach below.

Instructions: 

  1. Go to Lexis Uni.
  2. In Lexis Uni, find the "All Content Types" dropdown menu by the search box.
  3. Then in that dropdown menu, find the COMPANIES category and select "Company Profiles."
  4. Search for a company name or ticker symbol. 
  5. You may receive more than result and will need to select the correct one for your use.

Video length: 1:00

2. Find Company Profiles

About Company Profiles

⇒If you want a good overview of a company, find the company profile.

⇒A company profile is a report that compiles important pieces of information about a company. These profiles often include:

  • company history

  • a list of top officers ex: CEO and CFO

  • brands or product lists

  • market analysis

  • SWOT analysis.

Note:

  • Public companies are easier to research than private companies. Try to choose use a public company in your project.

If you choose to use a private company, try these strategies:

  • Do some simple, broad searches in Wikipedia to get some general information about your private company.
  • Once you have some names of private companies come back to the databases and search. 

Step-by-step instructions for Business Source Premier  

  1. Go to Business Source Premier (database) Lock symbol indicates that Library ID and password must be used to login when off the Madison campus.. 
  2. Scroll down to "Explore featured content" and choose "Company Profile Reports.
  3. Select "All Company Profiles" in the search box after "MarketLine Company Profile*"
  4. Change the sort of your search from "Relevance" to "Date newest."
  5. Select the "MarketLine Company Profile" for the company you are researching.

Screenshot of sample search for company profile in Business Source Premier

3. Find financials of a company

Get additional financial information about a company by using the following sources.

Lexis Uni

Instructions:

  1. Go to LexisUni.

  2. In LexisUni, find the "All Content Types" dropdown menu by the search box.

  3. Then in that dropdown menu, find the COMPANIES category and select "Company Profiles".

  4. Search for a company name or ticker symbol.

  5. You may receive more than result and will need to select the correct one for your use.

EDGAR Company Search (Securities & Exchange Commission)

EDGAR provides access to all reports for public companies.

Public companies must report many aspects of their businesses through a variety of reports to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

Instructions:

  1. Go to EDGAR and search for company name or ticker symbol
  2. Search for the company name and select the correct company
  3. Then look at reports, especially 10K, 10Q, and 8K reports

Find recent news about a company using Business Source Premier

Finding News & More on Business Source Premier Lock symbol indicates that Library ID and password must be used to login when off the Madison campus.

  • Use the search bar on the main page to locate your company.
  • On the results page, use the filters under the search bar to find:
    • Academic Journals (peer-reviewed)
    • Magazines
    • Newspapers

You can use "Reports" or the "Source Type" to learn more about the company and its products including:

  • SWOT
  • Analysis Industry Profiles
  • Market Research

This video demonstrates how to search and locate specific types of information in Business Source Premier.

Video length: 3:55

Transcript Business Source Premier 2025_Captions_English (United States)

Using Database Tools to Cite and Save

This video demonstrates how to generate citations, save links to items you find in three different databases, and where to find guides to proofread citations. 

Video length: 3:47

Transcript_Using Database Tools to Cite and Save_Captions_English (United States)