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Database of the Month: Business Insights: Essentials

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by Kimberly Morin
April 7, 2016

BIE Business Insights: Essentials provides in-depth information on U.S. and international businesses (both public and private) and industries. Included are company profiles, industry profiles, financial data, investment reports and articles from business periodicals. The strength of this database comes from its underlying sources. It is a great resource for getting a company's history, market share and SWOT analysis. It is also a great resource for getting an overview of a particular industry as well. Usage tip: Start by searching for a company name (such as Walmart) or ticker symbol (such as WMT)  in the keyword box and look through your results for the company profile. This will create a “dashboard” view of all of the available reports regarding your company including:

  • A Company History (sourced from International Directory of Company Histories)
  • Market share (sourced from Market Share Reporter)
  • SWOT Analysis (sourced from Global Markets Direct SWOT Reports published by GlobalData Ltd.)
  • And many others  (see below image).

BIECDS The company profile also provides a Related Articles area that groups current article content into specific subject categories. These articles help to update the above reports with the most current data available. The Related Articles are grouped into these categories:

  • Financial Data
  • Legal Issues
  • Management
  • Operations & Technology
  • People; Products & Services
  • Sales & Marketing
  • Statistics
  • Strategy & Planning

Remember, when you click on one of these subject categories in the company profile, you will only link to articles relevant to this specific company. The company profile also includes the industry names and the NAICS codes in which the company operates including the one indicated as the Primary Industry. Clicking on the linked title (see below image) will bring up an industry profile.

BIENaics

Of note: searching for the NAICS code (such as 452990) in the keyword search box on the database's homepage will also bring up an industry profile. An industry profiles lists "Top Companies" by Revenue and provides "Industry Essays" (sourced from the Gale Business Insights Online Collection, 2016 which consists of these encyclopedias: Encyclopedia of American Industries; Emerging Industries & Global Industries). Business Insights: Essentials can be used to compare companies and/or industries using available metrics. This feature is available under the Comparison Charts drop down menu from the database's homepage.

  • Metrics available for companies: Number of employees, Number of employees over Time, Revenue, Sales per employee, Sales Per Employee over Time
  • Metrics available for industries: Number of Companies; Number of Companies over Time; Employees; Number of Employees over time; Sales Per Employee; Sales Per Employee over Time; Revenue

Comparison charts & data can be exported into Excel.

Database of the Month provides a very brief introduction to a database available from the Library’s website, highlighting key features of the database that you should know about. If you would like more information about this database (or any of the library’s databases), please contact us for research assistance. If you would like a demonstration of this database for a class, please schedule a research instruction class using this form.