Research for an Industry analysis

NAICS Code/SIC Code

• In many economics and business reference resources, industries are classified numerically using the North American Industrial Classification System, commonly called the NAICS (pronounced nakes) Code and its predecessor, the Standard Industrial Classification (SIC code). These codes can be identified by going to the site: http://www.census.gov/epcd/naics02/
• Click in the search box and enter one word or a short phrase from the industry name.
• Click on the “2002 NAICS Search” button.
• Identify the specific industry from the list of results, then click on the code number for it.
• This will give you the current and 1997 NAICS Code numbers and the SIC number.
• Or, go to the complete list at http://www.census.gov/epcd/naics02/naicod02.htm and follow the hierarchy from the most general code to the specific code that you need, then click on that number to get all 3 of the codes.

Industry surveys and reports

Standard & Poor’s Industry Survey (See video)

• Enter the database Standard & Poor’s Market Insight
• Click on the “Industry” link in the top menu
• Click on the down arrow for the box “Select a GICS Sub-Industry”, then click on a specific industry, for example “Apparel retail”.
• Click the “GO” button next to the box.
• Don’t know the industry? If you know a company or part of the industry name, click the “LOOKUP” button to find the whole industry name.
• After clicking “GO”, a menu will appear on the left side of the screen with links to several reports, mostly of a financial nature.
• The most important report by far is the S&P Industry Survey. Click on the link to pull up a PDF copy of the report.
• There are also a number of other useful reports available from the industry menu. Compustat reports for:
• GICS Sub-Industry Profile
• GICS Sub-Industry Constituents
• GICS Sub-Industry Revenue Share
• GICS Sub-Industry Financial Highlights
• Previous S&P Industry Surveys, about the last 5 years, are available by clicking on the “Archives” link.
• The Library has a collection of Industry Surveys in paper from 1981 – 2002. Those from 1989 – 2002 are in the Main stacks on the 3 rd floor under call number HG4961.S7. Those from 1981 – 1988 are in Book Storage under the same call number and need to be requested at the Library Circulation Desk.

The Industry (or Sub-Industry) Outlook report available on Standard & Poor’s Market Insight is a current evaluation of investment opportunities in the industry. You need to know a company that is in the industry to get to this report.

Click on the “Company” link in the top menu.

Fill in the Ticker Symbol in the search box that appears. (Click the “LOOKUP” button to find the ticker symbol using the company name).

Click “S&P Stock Reports” in the menu on the left side of the screen.

Click on the link for “Industry Outlook” which now appears in that left menu.

• Enter the database Business Source Premier
• Click on the link for “ Industry Profiles”
• In the “Browse” box, enter the first word of the name of the industry and click the “Browse” button
• From the resulting list of reports, pick the one you wish to see, usually either the global or United States industry profile
• The Industry Yearbooks often have useful information, also, so you may want to select them from the list of reports.
• Then follow the date links on the right to pull up the report you want
• Select either the HTML or PDF copy of the report

The online version of this survey is still in development by the International Trade Administration (ITA). Click here for current status.

In its place, the Manufacturing and Services home page is a portal to Web resources of the ITA industry offices. The industry Web sites offer sector-specific trade statistics, background documents, current trade updates, links to further industry information, and staff contacts by industry specialty.

The ITA Office of Trade and Industry Information offers recent data on foreign trade and domestic production, including Trends Tables (click on "U.S. Industry Sector Data") covering hundreds of industries, sorted by NAICS or SIC code. The site's many data reports include state-level export numbers and an industry review.

Print editions of this publication are available in the Government Documents collection of the UI Library. The most recent one (2000) is in the Reference Documents collection, call number C61.48, on the first floor immediately to the left of the Information Desk. Previous editions from 1960-1999 are available from the Government Documents Office on the first floor near the computer lab. Owing to the peculiarity of the government documents classification system’s that is arranged by the government agency which produced the document and the fact that the name of the agency which produces this document has changed a number of times, the call numbers by years are:

Valueline investment survey (print only)

• Ref HG4501.V26
• Most recent edition on Reserve in the library
• Previous three editions in Reference
• Earlier editions in Bookstorage. Ask for them at the Circulation Desk

1. Use part 1, the Summary & Index, to identify the page number for the industry report (Example)
2. Find the page number in part III, Ratings & Reports. There will be a current report on the industry followed by reports on the companies that comprise the industry (example)

Trade Associations A trade association is a group that ordinarily represents and/or lobbies on behalf of an industry. Trade association web sites often contain useful, though somewhat biased, information on industries.

1. In Google, search for a trade association by putting in the industry name (don’t use the word “industry”) together with the word association. Unfortunately, you will not find a complete list, as many associations use other words instead of “association”, like “society” or “council” or “institute” or “alliance. (Examples using association and society)
2. Go to the web site of the American Society of Association Executives (ASAE).
1. Move the mouse over the “Directory” in the left side menu and click on “Associations”.
2. Select “Gateway to Associations” and click “Go”.
3. In the search boxes, use the down arrows to restrict the search by “Country” and/or “State/Province” if desired. There are now 2 possibilities for conducting a search:
1. Click the down arrow at the end of the Category/keyword box, then move down the list until you reach the industry name desired. Click on the industry name, then click the “Search” button to get the list of associations for that industry. You may want to get results for several keyword combinations, for example, for “Forestry/Forest Products” first, then for “Paper/Packaging Industry” and again for “Paper Manufacturers and Suppliers”.
2. Or, use the “Associations name contains” box and enter a keyword or two to identify the product, for example “wood”.
3. The most comprehensive resource for finding trade associations is the Encyclopedia of Associations, which is available in print in the UI Library Reference Collection on the first floor under call number Ref HS17.G3 .
1. “Trade, Business, and Commercial Organizations” are arranged alphabetically by subject in Volume 1 of this set. (Example)

• Under each subject heading can be found both general and very specific associations. For example, under “Apparel”, there are listings for The Hosiery Association and the Headwear Information Bureau along with the more inclusive American Apparel and Footwear Association and the American Apparel Producers Network.
• A short description of each association is given with contact information, which usually includes a website address. (Example)
• Relevant associations may be scattered under several subject headings. For example, associations having to do with “wood” products may be found under “Forest industries”, “forest products, “wood”, or other terms.

1. The “Name and Keyword Index” in the last volume of the encyclopedia offers separate and more complete access to associations covering a particular subject.

• Under the keyword are listed associations with any relationship to the term together with the page number where the complete description of the association can be found.

Articles

Ebsco Business Search

Use this combination of databases to search all of those listed below in one search. Each of the databases can also be searched individually. Most of the articles are available in full text.

1. Business Source Premier – covers more than 8,000 business journals and other sources
2. Regional Business News – searches about 75 business journals, newspapers and newswires covering all metropolitan and rural areas within the United States
3. Academic Search Premier – a scholarly, multidisciplinary database for searching through 8,000 journals with full text available for about 5,000 of those.
4. MasterFile Premier – searches about 3,000 general periodicals with full text available for about 2,000 of those.
5. Newspaper Source – provides selected full text from 30 national (U.S.) and international newspapers, more than 200 regional (U.S.) newspapers and television & radio news transcripts.

Enter the database Ebsco Business Search (Example)

• Click in the “Find” box and enter keywords for your search. (Example)
• Consider using the wildcard * at the end of word stems for your search. For example, use comput* to search for any of the words compute, computer, computing and any other words starting with that stem. Information about this and additional searching options can be found by clicking on the “Search Tips” link below the search box, or by clicking the “Help” link in the upper right corner of the page. (Example)
• If results are unhelpful, consider using a phrase for your search by enclosing the name of the industry in quotes, for example, “forest products industry” (Example)

Using the results:

1. Many articles will have the full text available within the database. (Example) Simply click on the HTML link (example) or the PDF link (example) for full text. The PDF version is an exact reproduction of the article and is recommended. (example)
2. If the article is not available in the EBSCO database, click on “Find More Information” or the LS symbol (for the LinkSource software that is used for this feature) (Example). This will present several possible options:
1. Full text of the article may be available online through the library’s subscription to another database. Click the link to get to the available full text. (Example)
2. Search the library catalog to find out if the library has the article available in paper in the stacks. (Example)
3. If the library does not have a copy available, click the link to request an interlibrary loan, a free service the library provides by obtaining the article from another library. (Example) In most cases, a copy of the article will be emailed to you within 2-3 days.

Lexis/Nexis

Enter the database “Lexis-Nexis”. (Example)

There are many ways to search for industry information in Lexis/Nexis and you can find different information using each of them:

• Quick News search.
• On the opening screen of the database, enter terms in the search box to retrieve up to 125 of the most relevant news articles on the topic. (example). Click the “Tips” link for help in searching.
• Several date options are available to focus your search. Click on the down arrow and select the time period you wish to search from today to 2 years. (Example)
• In the results, click the title to read the full text of any article. Or, tag each document that you wish to print or email.
• Guided News search.

• Click the “Guided News Search” tab (example) or the “News” link in the menu on the left side of the page.
• Step One: Select a news category. Business News is the most important option, but you may find other good information for your topic under General News, U.S. News, World News or other options.
• Step Two: Select a News Source. Several options are available for each of the categories selected in Step One. In the Business News category, although Industry News may be the most pertinent source, you will likely find useful information in the Business & Finance, Mergers & Acquisitions, and the Knight/Ridder Business News sources, also.
• Step Three: Enter Search Terms. Click the Help link in the top menu of the page for assistance in constructing a search using features such as wildcards or Boolean connectors. The default is to search in the Headlines, Lead Paragraphs, Terms. If your search pulls out too many useless items, you might consider searching only in Headlines. If you don’t find enough items, search in the Full Text. Company Name or Ticker Symbol are some of the other options that may be useful for your search.
• Step Four, picking dates to search, is tricky because if your search is going to retrieve more than 1000 documents, you will only see an error message, not the results. So you may need to play with the date range to stay under the limit, then use the From…To option to search beyond the date range originally selected.
• In the results, click the title to read the full text of any article. Or, tag each document that you wish to print or email.

• Industry & Market News. This covers different, and less, items than the Industry News source in the Business News category of the Guided News search above.

• Click on the “Business” link in the menu on the left of the page, then click on “Industry & Market”.
• Click on “Tips” on the right side of the header line for specific information on doing a search.
• Enter words for your search.
• Select the industry for which you want news.
• Select the date period for your search.
• In the results, click the title to read the full text of any article. Or, tag each document that you wish to print or email.

• Enter the database “Proquest Newspapers”. The importance of this database for business topics is that it contains the full text of the Wall Street Journal. Other newspapers are also covered, but all of them except the Chicago Tribune are also available in full text in the EBSCO Newspaper Source or in Lexis/Nexis.
• Several different search possibilities exist. Click “Search tips” for help with putting a search together.
• In the “Advanced search”, click on “more search options” below the search boxes to search by NAICS code, company or person.
• Together with the results of any search, Proquest lists a number of “suggested topics” which may be handy to click on to narrow your search.
• Click on the title of any result or on the “Full text” link to look at the whole article where available.
• Click in the box in front of each useful article citation to “mark” it. To email or print or otherwise download the list of marked articles, click on the “Marked List” tab at the top of the page.

Books

Library Catalog

Recommended: Use the search box on the library home page or use the Advanced Search. Use of either allows more specific searching than the “Simple Search” option.

Sort your search results by clicking on the arrow in the “Sort by” box and clicking on

“Date (newest first)” to have the most current books first in the list.

WorldCat This database can be useful in identifying any books at all on a topic whether it is in the UI Library or not. Books not in the UI Library can then be ordered via Interlibrary Loan at no charge. Get your order in early because it may take 1-2 weeks to receive the book.