Entrepreneurship is the process of creating a vision of a new product and service and bringing it to market. In addition to the initial idea, it requires extensive research on existing and potential markets.
IBISWorld provides 3 types of business reports: Industry Market Research: Reports (PDF) on over 700 US industries arranged by 5-digit NAICS code, typically 25-50 pages in length with executive summaries, updated regularly; Business Environment: Data and analysis (PDF and Word) on 200+ economic and demographic statistics, around 300 key business environment indicators; and Specialized Industry Reports of over 600 titles also arranged by NAICS code that contain the same chapters and format as the Core US Industry Reports, but encompass niche and emerging industries with a focus on technology, healthcare, consumer goods, and other fast-growing sectors.
IBISWorld provides a comprehensive collection of industry market research reports. Industry Research Reports are powerful business tools that provide strategic insight and analysis on over 700 U.S. industries. Each industry report is written at the 5-digit NAICS level - an unparalleled degree of detail. The reports are updated frequently, which gives you the confidence to make accurate and speedy business decisions.
Each report includes 9 chapters, and 34 sub-chapters that provide insight into current and forecast industry performance, changing trends, operating conditions and supply chain linkages.
Every industry faces a set of variables outside its control that have a material effect on industry performance. These factors, which include exchange rates, commodity prices, consumer attitudes, weather conditions, government policies among others are covered by our extensive range of business environment reports. Understanding these factors makes it easier to predict trends for your business and competitors.
So, what are the key factors outside the control of your organisation that determine the performance of your industry? Find out in our brief summaries within our industry research reports, or use our business environment reports as a supplement to acquire a deeper understanding of these trends. Our two-to-three-page business environment reports provide insights into all the demographic, environmental and business trends that you can’t afford to ignore.
MarketResearch.com provides access to a wide range of reports and industry analyses covering sectors such as consumer goods, healthcare, technology, heavy industry, and public services. Reports are sourced from multiple publishers and include data on market trends, forecasts, competitive landscapes, consumer behavior, and company profiles. Users can search by industry, region, or specific companies, with reports available by section or in full. The database supports business professionals, academic researchers, and students seeking data to inform strategic planning and market analysis.
Mintel offers over 900 market research reports focused on the broad categories of: Beauty and Personal, Drink, Electronics, European Retail Intelligence, Food and Foodservice, Health and Medical, Health and Wellness, Household, Lifestyles, Retailing and Travel. The reports can be searched for product, brand name or keyword. You can incorporate trends and forecasts, including a five-year forecast, brand share, category trends, and consumer attitudes and behaviors.
Recently added is the Global Consumer bi-annual survey of 35,000 people across 36 markets with coverage in the beauty, food and drink and general consumer trends areas.
Business Source Complete is a citation, abstracts, and full-text database that indexes journals; books; financial data; reference works; conference proceedings; company, industry, investment, marketing, and country reports; SWOT analyses; and case studies. Full text is provides as HTML and PDF. You can limit to peer-reviewed sources. 1886-present; most content is 1980s-present.
ProQuest One Business combines multiple ProQuest business information databases to a total of more than 130 million documents. It contains more than 2,400 journals and magazines, several hundred news sources, thousands of ebooks and videos, and hundreds of thousands of reports from renowned publishiers such as J.P. Morgan, Economist Intelligence Unit, Oxford Economics, Hoovers, and others. ProQuest One Business indexes citations, abstracts, and full text news articles, market and SWOT analyses, industry reports, country reports, downloadable data sets, dissertations, business cases, working papers, annual reports from North American companies, and company profiles and histories.
ProQuest developed a new business subject thesaurus as well as a new corporation thesaurus for ProQuest One Business. All documents included in this collection were reindexed, using these new thesauri. In addition, all company, industry and country reports were reindexed allowing you to limit your search to specific content that must appear in the reports like e.g. a SWOT analysis or a financial forecast. This makes it significantly easier to get more precise and relevant results.
For several thousand companies ProQuest One Business offers special portal pages - so called Company Overviews - and each of these pages provides you with direct access to different types of material for the respective company:
Company Overview
Recent News from Major Publications
Company Reports (grouped by type of information)
All Content for this Company (a bibliometric graph)
Scholarly Journal Articles
Magazines and Trade Journal Articles
Related Companies in this Industry
Factiva provides full-text news articles and business/industry information from newswires, newspapers, business and industry magazines, television and radio transcripts, financial reports, and photos from news services. Most content is HTML, though other formats are available for export. News sources 1979-present; financial data 1960s-present.
Factiva provides full-text news articles and business information. From the Search tab, use the Free Text search box to explore an archive of over 50 years of news and other sources.
From the News Pages tab, you can browse current issues of major newspapers and business magazines from around the world.
From the Companies/Markets tab, you can research competitors, suppliers, customers, and partners through market data, interactive charts, financial statements, and more for individual companies or industries. Data includes current and historical pricing on a variety of financial instruments like stocks, funds, currencies, and market indexes.
Search database for trademark registrations and applications by mark, owner, or serial/registration number with Trademark Electronic Search System (TESS)
Interlibrary Loan Services
All current Virginia Tech students, faculty, and staff, regardless of your location, may request through ILLiad for materials:
not owned by Virginia Tech (books, articles from journals and conference proceedings, book chapters, standards, and technical papers)
owned by Virginia Tech but are unavailable for use (print books)
owned by Virginia Tech and available in print (scans of articles from journals and conference proceedings, book chapters, standards, and technical papers)
We ship requests via UPS to users outside the immediate Blacksburg area (Montgomery, Giles and Pulaski counties).
Articles, book chapters, and many technical papers are delivered in PDF format to your ILLiad account. Occasionally, due to copyright restrictions, a paper copy of an article or standard is held for your at the Newman User Services Desk or sent o the mailing address listed on your account.
