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Marketing Information: Case Studies: Find Industry Information

This guide is designed to assist you in finding library and publicly available resources for completing your marketing case study.

Identifying Industries

Industries are categorized in various ways, so consider broader and narrower definitions of the industry as you review the following sources. For example, if you are researching instant oatmeal, you may have to consider hot cereal, breakfast cereal, grains, etc.

NAICS and SIC:

NAICS (North American Industry Classification System) and SIC (Standard Industrial Classification System) are classification codes for industries.

 

Industry Information

  • ABI/INFORM Complete-  Provides business research from journals, trade publications, market research reports, dissertations, and working papers.
  • Access World News-  This comprehensive news collection is ideal for exploring issues and events at the local, regional, national and international level. Its diverse source types include print and online-only newspapers, blogs, newswires, journals, broadcast transcripts and videos. 
  • Business Source Complete-To find industry information, try searching by NAICS code. Or try entering the name of an industry on one line like "furniture" and the phrase "industrial statistics" on the second line.
  • Hoover's Industrial Reports- These reports provide brief industrial overviews, the top companies in the industry, associations and organizations, and key people. Type the name of an industry into the search box to retrieve an industry report, or type "snapshots" in the search box to get a listing of all available Hoover industry reports.
  • Mergent Online- To find industry reports, click on the Report Search tab. On the resulting screen, look for the Industry Reports link under the tabs.
  • IBIS World-Provides  a comprehensive and up to date collection of US Industry research covering more than 700 industries at the 5 digit NAICS code. Simply type the name of the industry in the search box ex.computers. The results will include the subcategories of that industry. For example: "computer manufacturing" or "computer stores". Select the subcategory that best fits the industry you want.
  • Business Databases- To find industry overview information in other business databases, try searching on the name of your industry, ex. restaurant, with a word like "trends", "industry", "outlook" or "forecast".
  • News and Current Affairs Databases-News databases are a rich source for industry information. Try searching news databases combining the name of your industry, ex. hotels, with a word like "trends", "industry", "outlook" or "forecast". 
  • Nexis Uni- Provides full-text documents from over 5,900 news, business, legal, medical and reference publications.
  • Statista- It is a holistic and multidisciplinary database. Data aggregation and research platform covering worldwide markets, industries, and societal topics.