Leading online tool for company & industry information

The OneSource Global Business Browser is on trial again until at least the end of August. This online database is a leading company and industry research tool for universities and libraries. OneSource integrates business information on companies around the world, covering 17 million global companies. The content is packaged into a web-based research tool and links together company and industry profiles allowing users to quickly conduct their research.

If you find this database useful, and think the University should subscribe to it, please let the Library know.

Here is a snapshot of what this database can do for you:

OneSource's business information includes:
* In-depth company profiles covering 17 million companies worldwide
* 21,000 Australian/NZ private and public companies with more added weekly.
* Get in-depth profiles of companies, including: financials, annual reports, corporate affiliations.
* Query for companies by industry, size, location and more
* Industry overviews, trends and market research
* Find information about executives and board members
* Up to date News wires, trade and business press
* Much of the data is exportable to Excel

Over 100 search variables are available for screening against global companies. These include:
* Business Description
* Corporate financials
* Financial Values and Ratios
* Parents and subsidiaries
* Industry codes including US and ANZ SIC
* Geographic variables ranging from international regions to postal codes
* Analyst company & Industry reports (up to eight long brokerage house reports provided)
* Rank Screening (e.g. Top 50 by Sales)
* Users can perform full text searches against the analyst report archive, allowing them to search for specific subjects such as new technologies.

OneStop Report
The OneStop report provides a unified, customisable report, which may be saved to PDF, allowing users to store detailed company profiles for later review. Users may include significant developments, executives and biographies, five years of financials, Company Insights and SWOT reports.

Industry Research – OneSource provides an industry module with market research and other industry content:
* Datamonitor (2,500 global market research reports by SIC) including 554 Asia Pac reports:
* Industry Sector Analyses (1,500 industry profiles) from the US Intl. Trade Administration
* US Private Company Industry Norms from RMA by NAICS and company size
* Current Industry reports from the US Census Bureau Government and association links from OneSource.
* Top Competitors by geography, industry, and size variable (e.g. Assets, Sales, etc.)
* Industry news by topic from Gale Business & Industry.

Library newsletter

Before franklly was a blog, it was the name of the Library's newsletter. There's a new issue of the newsletter available right now (pdf file). This issue is mainly about doing industry research. Using the Australian wine industry as an example, the newsletter has useful information about using Australian Bureau of Statistics data and subscription library databases (Business Source Premier, Factiva and Global Market Information Database) and other web resources to find industry information. Previous issues of the newsletter are available on the Library's website.

IBISWorld industry market research reports at the Frank Lowy Library

One of the special resources which the Frank Lowy Library provides to MBA, Executive MBA and PhD students at the Australian School of Business (this is the new name of the AGSM since its merger with the UNSW Faculty and Commerce and Economics) is access to IBISWorld Industry Reports.

IBISWorld Industry reports are popular because they're viewed as authoritative, comprehensive and time-saving. IBISWorld Industry reports are a premium resource (if you were wanting buy one of these reports for yourself or your company, the whole thing would set you back upwards of $A 700), and so the Library has needed to limit access. This is the reason why a librarian needs to approve requests to open IBISWorld reports. It is always difficult for Library staff to say no to students, but we believe our practices to be as fair as possible, ensuring that the greatest number of students have the opportunity to benefit from IBISWorld Industry reports when needed.

1. Only IBISWorld Australian industry market research reports are opened. Yes, IBISWorld offers many products, including US industry market research reports, and company research reports, but the Library has access to other resources which serve these areas at least as well as the IBISWorld reports.
2. There will be instances when alternative resources answer the question better than the IBISWorld industry report. When this happens, the IBISWorld industry report will not be opened, but Library will help you locate these other resources.
3. Generally no more than one IBISWorld industry report can be opened per student in a financial year.

One thing worth noting is that once an IBISWorld report has been opened for one student, it can be viewed an unlimited number of times during that financial year. Because we're approaching the end of the 2006-2007 financial year, there is a large number of reports which are already opened and can be viewed easily by Frank Lowy Library users. But come July 1, all of these opened reports will be closed again - except for the ten most popular reports.

Watch this blog for more hints and tips about using IBISWorld reports effectively.