Market Research Guide for L2M

Quick Links

Quick Background 
Primary research, interviewing
Private Sources: Analysts, Risk Analysis
Trade News & Regional Business News
Web Search
Public & Other Data Sources 
Materials from Class
Business Resources @ UCSD

Quick Background

Business & Company Resource Center

Path: Advanced Search --> Content Area: Industry Overviews, Search: keyword or fulltext

Business Source Complete
BSC is a good alternative starting point for industry overviews, business news and academic articles related to management, marketing, strategy, finance and many other topics. It contains fulltext of key journals like Harvard Business Review, Academy of Management Journal, etc.

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Primary Research, Interviewing

  • The Leadership Directories
    This collectin provides searchable information more than 40,000 major United States government, business, news media, law firm, and nonprofit organizations, including contact information for leadership and key staff details.
  • CorpTech Directory of Technology Companies
    Can only be accessed from on campus. This unique directory identifies technology companies and can be used for certain kinds of competitive intelligence tasks.
  • Associations Unlimited
    Use this link to identify non-profit organizations that may be collecting and disseminating information on an industry or demographic group.
  • COS Pivot (formerly called COS Expertise database)
    This collection features both grant funding sources and profiles of faculty and other researchers from around the world, providing an easy way to identify experts and contact them.
  • U.S. Patent search
  • COS interface to Fed BizOpps

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Private Sources: Analysts, Pre-packaged Risk Analysis

  • Global Insight
    Useful resource for same-day news analysis of country risk. Our subscription includes the automotive, enegy, healthcare & pharma and telecoms modules, plus the U.S. macroeconomic dataset.
  • Business Monitor Online
    BMO features reports on country, economic and international business risk, and contains some industry reports.
  • EIU.com
    Economist Intelligence Unit provides news analysis and country risk articles.
  • Global Market Information Database (GMID)
    The GMID presents reports on customers, companies, industries and countries that focus on consumer market research. Reports include details about market segmentation, leading companies, industry forecasts, consumer spending and attititudes, and economic and business trends.
  • ISI Emerging Markets' Emerging Market Information Service
    Similar to EIU, Business Monitor and Global Insight in providing news and analysis, specializing in emerging markets around the world.
  • Datamonitor reports online in BCRC or Business Source Complete
    These reports include industry overviews, SWOT analysis, competitor analyses, and much more for selected industries.
  • Investext Plus
    This database specializes in analyst research reports on companies, industries, and countries prepared by analysts at leading investment banks, brokerage houses, and trade associations. Its strength is investment reports on public companies.
  • Mergent Online
    Contains industry reports and company analysis for publicly traded companies.

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Trade News & Regional Business News Sources

  • Business & Company Resource Center
    BCRC is multi-source and contains the database PROMT (trade journals, with an emphasis on technology markets), and other business information sources.
  • Regional Business News option in Business Source Complete
    When you are searching for local business news, use the drop-down menu next to In: and select Regional Business News to include local and regional coverage.
  • Factiva
    Factiva is good for company background, business news and academic articles, and specializes in local and international news in English and many other languages. See the special News Pages tab for browsing.
  • Lexis-Nexis Academic
    LNA also covers news and academic content. It also contains Hoover's company reports, company financials, industry news, legal research, biographical information, and news transcripts.
  • Wall Street Journal
    The fulltext of the WSJ is searchable by topic or browseable by day. It is our only source for fulltext of WSJ online.
  • Useful tool: UC-eLinks Citation Linker
    Use this form to find a specific article or journal name

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Web Search

  • Google Scholar
    GS cross searches content like academic journals, working papers and reports in many disciplines. Don't forget to set your Scholar Preferences to UCSD so you can take advantage of fulltext linking into our licensed resources.
  • Advanced Search in Google

Public and Other Data Sources

  • Global Market Information Database
    This resource contains consumer market reports and international demographic datasets.
  • Proquest Statistical Insight 
    This source is great for locating narrative reports from government & association sources that contain market research information.
  • Proquest Statistical Datasets
    This dataset resource produces statistical tables & charts from over 600 public domain datasets, primarily international, U.S. and local government data. Quick start guide.
  • Statistical Abstract of the United States
    This publication aggregates statistical reports and tables from government agencies, as well as other public and private sources (state governments, associations). It is a useful aid to identify the name of a report or the authoring agency, pointing to useful competitive intelligence background sources in the public domain.
  • TableBase
    This index extracts statistical information from articles in trade journals and business news publications, presenting it in tabular format. Sometimes it contains useful market share, rankings and industry information.

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Materials from Class


L2M Market Sizing PowerPoint, Decision Tree and Market Research Worksheet handouts

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General Guide to Business Information Resources @ UCSD