Out of Your Mind ... and Into the Marketplace®

U.S. and International Business Research Resources

Introduction

This resource guide has been developed to assist you with your marketing research efforts. It has been organized in the order in which you are most likely to need the information. If you haven't yet begun your marketing planning activities, you can begin with the next section and proceed through the resource guide from top to bottom, skipping those few sections that might not pertain to your particular business. If you have already begun your marketing planning, you can use the table of contents to the left to select the particular section which you need.

Critical Marketing Decisions

As you develop your business plan, you will have a number of important decisions to make. None of these are more important than the ones you make regarding your customers. The purpose of the following resources is to help you identify the information you need to make good customer decisions. The following are the key questions you will have to address:

What problems will you solve or needs will you fulfill for your customers?
What potential customers have those problems or needs? Which of these customers are most likely to take action to solve their problem or fill their need?
What do you know about your customers? In particular, from whom, what, when, where, why, and how do they buy?
Who are you competing against for the business of these customers?
What is the environment in which your business must thrive? How will this environment affect your ability to be successful?

Once you have answered these questions in detail, you are ready to make the five key marketing decisions:

Who will you sell to--that is, what consumers or companies are your target market?
What products or services will you sell them, and how will you position and package them?
How will you price your products or services and what kind of terms will you offer?
How will you distribute your products or services: person-to-person, direct mail, through a retail outlet, or through others (sometimes called distributors or manufacturers' reps)?
How will you communicate with your customers--that is, how when, and where will you advertise or promote your products or services?

You will want to consult a variety of sources to gather the information you need to make these decisions. The resource page that you can access from AYBP provides a number of resources that are available through local and school or university libraries.

There are also many sources of information available on the WorldWide Web to help you get the information you need. The purpose of this page is to give you a starting point in finding the resources which will help you answer the key questions posed above. Also included at the end of this list are links to the major "search engines" available on the WorldWide Web to help you search for additional information yourself.

Your Most Likely Customers

What problems will you solve or needs will you fill for your customers?

We assume that you already have an idea for a product or service that you would like to sell, and now must find customers for that product or service. The goal of answering this question is to determine the most likely customers for that product or service. Customers buy because they have needs or desires to fill, problems to solve, or see an opportunity. If you can help them fill the need or desire, solve the problem, or take advantage of the opportunity better than any of your competitors, then they are likely to buy from you.

What potential customers have those problems or needs?

Now that you know what problems your product or service will solve or what need it will fill, you can determine the potential customers who have that problem or need. Since not all consumers or businesses are customers for your products or services, you must discover which ones are your most likely customers. In general, your most likely customers are those who already recognize that they have a need to fill or a problem to solve, and are ready to take action to fill the need or solve the problem. If you're not sure which consumers or which companies are likely to be your best customers, then you will have to do some initial research to determine who they are and how you can reach them.

If your potential customers are other companies, then one way to narrow your search for companies is to identify the SIC (Standard Industrial Classification) Code and look for other firms with the same SIC code. You can look up SIC codes by keyword here. Search Webster's Business Guide by product, industry, company, SIC or NAICS code, and region. You'll also want to explore the North American Industrial Classification System, soon to replace the SIC system. zapdata.com can help you find more information on the customers in your chosen market. You'll have to register first, but it's free of charge. Of particular interest are the market information reports and new customer leads.

If your potential customers are individual consumers or families, then you may want to consider potential customers in the same income bracket, age range, geographic location, lifestyle, lifestyle cluster, or other relevant factor that will indicate they are more likely to need your product or service.

Which of these customers are willing to take action to solve their problem or fill their need?

Those potential customers who have the greatest need you can fill or most severe problem you can solve, and who recognize you can do so, are most likely to buy from you. The next section will suggest some ways you can find out more information about your customers.

What can you learn about your customers? From whom, what, when, where, why, and how do they buy?

If your potential customers are individual consumers or families, then you will find critical information about them in different places than if your potential customers are businesses, governments, or other organizations.

Consumers or Families as Customers

There may be a lot of information already available on your potential customers. For example, if demographic information (age, sex, religion, ethnic background, etc.) are a key to whether or not your customers will buy, the U.S. Census Bureau maintains the 1990 census information on-line, available to be searched directly. Or, you can choose a number of other data access tools that are available, including the ability to create maps. If your customers are from countries other than the U.S., you might want to consult the demography and population studies maintained as part of the WWW Virtual Library.

If your customers are more likely to buy based on lifestyle, you'll want to look at the Values and Lifestyles (VALS) program at SRI. VALS divides consumers into eight lifestyles groups. By examining the descriptions of each type, you may be able to determine what type of individual is the most likely prospect for your product or service. You can then find out much more information about your target groups. An even more comprehensive approach, with 62 lifestyle groups (or clusters) is provided by the PRIZM lifestyle segmentation system, from Claritas. If you're curious, you can even look up your own zip code to identify the five primary clusters in your neighborhood.

For foreign consumer information, choose from the following sources:

Eurostat: Key to European Statistics
Lifestyle, Environment, and Other Statistics--Japan
Foreign Government Data Sources, from the University of Michigan Library, has links to consumer and country information for many countries

Another good source of information about potential customers is often available from trade associations. For example, restaurants industry research, from the National Restaurant Association, contains a number of articles about the restaurant industry and dining trends of American consumers, and the Sporting Goods Manufacturer's Association offers an extensive research library. For other industries, you will want to search the TrainingForum Associations Database, a list of over 10,000 professional organizations, including their events.

If you're not sure whether any of these tools will help you determine more information about your customers, you may have to develop a questionnaire or survey. While these are best done by researchers experienced in their construction, you will find useful information at the American Demographics site. Search the entire site and be sure to check out Ask a Silly Question and That's a Good Question, for starters.

Companies as Customers

There's much more information available on-line about businesses than about consumers, so the choice is where to start. A good place for the small business person is the U.S. Small Business Administration. Start with its hot links. Another good starting point to find industry information is Yahoo's list of industry directories. Here are some others that might help you find information on your target customers:

If you're not too sure how to start your industry analysis, you might want to visit Sonoma State's Finding Industry Information site.
U.S. Industry & Trade Outlook is published by the U.S. Government, and provides an accurate, descriptive and statistical analysis of 350 industries. Particularly helpful are the industry forecasts for the current year, five-year industry projections, and a list of sources for further research.
You can often find specific industry reports produced by state governments. For example, this one on the Aerospace Industry was developed by the California Technology, Trade & Commerce Agency, which has produced industry reports on other key industries in the state of California.
The U.S. Census Bureau provides an economic overview for each of the major industrial SIC classifications. Also provided are key economic indicators for major industries.
The European Business Directory is a good starting point for businesses in Europe.
For more information on overseas companies, see Country Information.
Don't overlook the excellent paper-based and proprietary-usage resources that are available in most college libraries. For example, see the Business Subject Guides from the Pepperdine University Libraries or the Business Information section of the Library Business Guides at Sonoma State University.
There are many specialized industry reports available on the Internet--e.g., see the Office of Airline Information's Web page. Start with Google, Altavista, or FastSearch and enter "industry analysis" (with the quotes) to start. You might then want to refine your search with the advanced search capabilities.

Competitors

Against whom are you competing for these customers?

Once you have determined your target customers and learned the critical information you'll need to make decisions about how you'll price, promote, and distribute your products or services, you'll want to know who you are competing against, and how strong a competitor they might be.

A good place to start is Using the Internet for Competitive Intelligence. From there, you'll want to use these resources as starting places to find out more information about your competitors:

You can browse several business lists at Fortune Magazine, including the Fortune 500, the Global 500, and the 100 Fastest Growing Companies.
Techweb has ranked what it believes are the 101 Best Business Sites for 2001, from the Windows Magazine Online archives.
Wright's Company Analysis provides profiles for 1,000's of companies in the U.S. and other parts of the world. Or, start with the huge database of information from Corporate Information.
Hoover's On-line's MasterList Plus database contains information about 12,000 of the largest and fastest growing companies in the U.S. Start your search here.
The Web 100 ranks the 100 largest American companies on the Web by revenue, and has links to their Web sites. It now also ranks the 100 largest global companies on the Web.
The Wall Street Journal Interactive Edition provides much background information on companies featured in articles. You'll have to subscribe, but if you're doing a lot of research or just want to keep up with some of the best reporting in business around the world, the cost is cheap, and the first two weeks are free.

There are several sources of company financial information on the WorldWide Web:

The U.S. Security and Exchange Commission's EDGAR data base of corporate electronic filings contains information on all firms which are required by law to file with the SEC.
Quote.com provides a variety of financial information, some of which is free; but the best is available for a small charge. You must subscribe.
The Wall Street Journal Interactive Edition allows you to search for a company briefing book, which can contain information on company background, a financial overview, stock performance, recent news, and press releases. You'll have to subscribe first.
The Multex Investor provides timely and accurate company reports, quotes, news, price charts, stock screening tools, and industry, sector and company rankings on over 10,000 equities trading on the NYSE, Nasdaq, AMEX, and OTC Bulletin Board.
You might also want to review BRINT's Accounting and Finance resource links.

For information on foreign competitors, see Country Information and:

International Business and Technology Information from BRINT.
the Resource Desk from Michigan State University's Center for International Business Education and Research.
Jet's Commercial and Industry Directory. Jet Directories is the leading provider of electronic directory information in South East Asia.

What is the environment in which your business must thrive?

How will the environment in which you do business affect your ability to be successful? How are you affected by the economic, political, legal, regulatory, technological, and cultural environments in which you'll do business? In this section, you'll find resources to help you forecast and/or understand the various environments which can affect your business health.

Economic Environment

Sources of economic information on the WorldWide Web include:

Economic indicators from the U.S. Census Bureau.
The Documents Center of the University of Michigan Library is a repository for federal documents, including extensive links to statistical resources economics. You'll find more here than you ever imagined!
Economic Growth Research is hosted by The World Bank. Be sure to check out their other publications

Legal Environment

There are many legal factors and issues that may impact the success of your business. A good place to start might be Professor Ray August's International Law Dictionary and Directory. Or you might want to try some of the following sites for information on specific issues you might encounter, including advertising issues, trademark and patent issues, and doing business under NAFTA and World Trade Organization agreements:

The Library of Congress's Guide to Law Online is an annotated hypertext guide to sources of information worldwide on government and law available online. It includes links only to the most useful and reliable sites for legal information available for each of the world's nations.
The Advertising Law Internet Site is just one of many guides maintained by Arent Fox.
The European Union maintains a number of legal policies affecting firms desiring to do business in the EU. Consumer protection is one of the many in which you might be interested.
The Meta-Index for U.S. Legal Research is a service of Georgia State University College of Law. It encapsulates, in one place, several searchable indexes for U.S. law.
The Santa Barbara County Law Library maintains alist of legal resources site, a good source of information on California law.
The complete North American Free Trade Agreement is maintained by The Tech, the on-line news service at MIT. You can find additional information on NAFTA at NAFTA Fact Sheet and at this site.
You might want to start your search for legal information on patents and trademarks at the United States Patent and Trademark Office. If you are interested in more information, you can find the entire Trademark Act--Chapter 22 of the United States Code, as well as many other trademark reference sources, at the Legal Information Institute.
One of the most comprehensive set of links on patent and intellectual property law is maintained by Oppedahl & Larson LLP. You'll also find an early opinion on Internet Domain Names that Infringe Trademarks.
Europa: a WWW-server offering information on the European Union's goals and policies. EUROPA is a common endeavour of the EU's institutions, run by the European Commission.
An excellent site for international trade and commerce law is Lex Mercatoria, maintained by an international consortium of law schools in Norway, the USA, and Australia.

In addition, the following colleges and universities maintain international legal resources on-line (courtesy of Professor Ray August):

You can also search for legal information at Findlaw's legal search engine:

Law Crawler

Regulatory and Legislative Environments

There are many federal and state government regulations and legislation that can impact your business. Here are some places to start:

The Federal Trade Commission offers guidance for businesses. The FTC also has links to other helpful sites. You might also want to look for information at the Federal Communications Commission or the U. S. Food and Drug Administration sites.
For an index to all congressional legislation, consult Thomas: Legislative Information on the Internet.
Europa: a WWW-server offering information on the European Union's goals and policies. EUROPA is a common endeavour of the EU's institutions, run by the European Commission.

Technological Environment

You will want to be sure to keep on top of the technologies that are most important to your business. A good place to start is with the search engines, using the specific technology of interest as your starting search topic.

Do You Plan to Do Business in Foreign Countries?

If so, then you'll have to make some additional decisions. You'll want to research the particular countries that you believe will present the optimum foreign markets for your products or services, and you'll want to decide how to enter the countries you choose. The following sections will provide sources of information for you on other countries around the world, and will help you find import/export assistance.

Country Information

CIA World Factbook: This is an exhaustive guide to virtually every country in the world. It's a good place to start
City Sites provides one of the largest collections of regional, country, local, and city links.
Demography and Population Studies: keeps track of leading information facilities of value and/or significance to researchers in the field of demography.
Foreign Country Links is an up-to-date set of links to foreign (non-U.S.) country information sites. It's maintained by the University of Michigan Library
The Country Library is TradePort's index to country resources. This extensive library of country information was developed with funds from the U. S. Department of Commerce.
STAT-USA is hosted by the U.S. Department of Commerce and contains a wealth of economic and trade information. You can purchase articles one at a time, or subscribe to full access, but the prices are reasonable.

Asia

Asia Inc: from finance to sports, from Bangladesh to Vietnam, the Internet offers a wealth of information and services for the region's business people.
ChinaWorks is an information resource center with a focus on business and investment trends in China, particularly in the areas of science and technology. The current edition lists such articles as "Chinese Basic Policy For Attraction of Foreign Investment" by Xiao Gang, Ministry of Foreign Trade of The People's Republic of China, and "The Nature and Characteristics of China's Economic Cycle" by Lu Jian.
Japan
- Japan External Trade Organization: JETRO provides specialized industry information.
- The JAPAN INFORMATION NETWORK provides concise introductions of typical topics related to themes such as Japanese geography, economy and culture. They also provide statistics in a number of categories.
Thailand

Europe

EuroDicAutom is a large, multilanguage database containing European industry information and articles.
AdmiNet is a wealth of information on European (and African) countries. AdmiNet also links to most of the major French public administration sites on the Web and is an excellent source of primary documents, such as ministerial decrees, speeches and press releases.
ukonline.gov.uk is a wealth of information on government and news in the UK.
Other sources of information in the European Union.

Middle East

Arabia.on.line: "your gateway to Arab business, culture, and art"
Arab Business Network: Middle Eastern network of business, trade, finance, laws, services, engineering, industry, tourism, insurance, real estates and banking in Jordan, Palestine, Syria, Lebanon, UAE.
Aramex International: Arab, Middle Eastern, global one-stop-shop for all transportation needs, offering many services including express delivery, customs clearance, logistics and special services, airfreight forwarding, ocean freight, distribution and warehousing. Offers on-line tracking of shipment service.
Birzeit University's Complete Guide to Palestine's Websites
The Jerusalem Post Daily Internet Edition
Jordan/Global One® Communications (Jordan) Ltd., the leading ISP in Jordan, is a combined effort of Deutsche Telekom, France Telecom, Sprint, and local partners.
Extensive links on The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, from Yahoo.
Kuwait: The Kuwait Information Office.
Extensive links on Turkey, from Yahoo. Although somewhat dated this site on Turkey provides much general information (introduction of Turkish Culture, customs, and history) about Turkey. It also provides links to useful information, communication among Turkish people world-wide and between Turkish people and other interested parties.

Culture Sites

You may want to start with the extensive set of culturally-oriented news groups in soc.culture. You can get to the newsgroups from here. Be sure you have your news group reader configured.
The Laramie County Library System has prepared a thoughtful list of culture sites on the Web.
The Electronic Cultural Atlas Initiative is producing an interactive electronic atlas of the world from which selected data from regions, eras, and disciplines can be instantaneously accessed.
See several of the links under Yahoo's Society and Culture section.
The Web of Culture provides insight into gestures around the world.
The Library of Congress Country Studies books each deal with a particular foreign country, describing and analyzing its political, economic, social, and national security systems and institutions, and examining the interrelationships of those systems and the ways they are shaped by cultural factors.

Import/Export Information

Foreign Trade Statistics from the U.S. Census Bureau.
INO Global Exchange Links lists of all the major exchanges in the world that trade futures and/or options. Also see INO News for market summaries and intra-day news.
The IMEX Exchange, Inc. is dedicated to promoting international trade on the Internet, and through international trade, cooperation and understanding among nations and people.
The Innovation in Europe site answers what is innovation and how can it be fostered in an organization.
TradePort: is hosted by L.A. Trade, and funded by a grant from the U.S. Department of Commerce. It contains a large number of resources to assist you specifically with getting started in importing or exporting. L.A. Trade also has trade specialists who can assist you free of charge.
World Trade Search is designed as a one-stop shopping location for trade between the west and the orient. In particular, they are focused on providing the most extensive online database of Asian, American, and European companies. They also provide links to a number of other world trade sites.

Foreign Government Information

Foreign Governments Web Site Listing: is an up-to-date set of links to foreign (non-U.S.) government information sites. It's maintained by the University of Michigan Library
U.S. Federal Government Agencies
Yahoo's Country Governments is an extensive listing of governmental agencies for more than 50 countries, organized by country

Search Engines

The Matrix: This collection represents an evaluation and opinion of many of the most popular Web search engines and subject catalogs. Although ideally suited, accorded to the author, as a guide for the Internet novice, it also serves as a checklist for experienced netsurfer's and information specialists who want specific features or value-added services.
All The Web: All The Web (Fast Search) claims to be the fastest search engine with the most Web, FTP, and MP3 pages, as well as the most pictures.
Alta Vista: This site claims to provide access to nearly 30 million Web pages. It also includes a full-text index to over 18,000 news groups. To tune your search, use the advanced query, and specify criteria.
Deja.com: Deja.com was recently acquired by Google. Use the Advanced Groups Search to refine your search.
excite Netsearch: excite Netsearch allows you to search one of the largest web databases, more than 11.5 million pages including over 50,000 web site reviews, more than 1 million articles from 10,000 newsgroups, and Usenet classified advertisements from the past two weeks.
Google: Google indexes over 1.6 billion Web pages. For advanced search assistance, see Advanced Search Made Easy.
HotBot: HotBot indexes over 50 million Web pages. For assistance, see HotBot Help Directory. HotBot is now owned by Lycos.
office.com: office.com individual news offers the Internet's largest free collection of uniquely individualized business, financial, industry, trade, and company-specific news and information.
go.com: go.com provides the ability to search, as well as the ability to specifically search business and finance resources.
Lycos: Lycos claims to have the largest catalogue of URL's. Be sure to use the custom search to have more control over the results returned.
Magellan: Magellan indexes a large number of sites, and reviews many of them. They are now owned by Excite.
Yahoo: Yahoo is one of the best organized search sites on the Web. For more control over the results, use the search controls. Also, be sure to drill down into categories such as business and the economy, and government.

Multi-Engine Search Sites

MetaCrawler: MetaCrawler searches the search engines.
Ask Jeeves: Ask Jeeves allows you to ask free-form questions, analyzes it, submits appropriate questions to several search engines, and then returns the answers to you.
The Big Hub: The Big Hub (formerly The Internet Sleuth) submits your search to several search engines.

Entrepreneur Resources

SBA Online: The U.S. Small Business Administration has put together a very comprehensive collection of resources for use by entrepreneurs. It provides the full text of all SBA-published pamphlets. It also has an extensive library of small-business-related software available for downloading. Be sure to review the reading library, as well.
Center for Family Business: The Center for Family Business is now supported by College of Business Adminstration at Northeastern University.
The Entrepreneurial Edge/The Ed Lowe Foundation: This private foundation provides a searchable 900-item bibliography that is one of the best hypertext guides to entrepreneurship resources on the net. Also provided is searchable text of hundreds of books and other documents on entrepreneurship.
Yahoo's Small Business Information: Yahoo provides a number of links for small businesses, but you might also try searching for small business information to find other categories, too.
Jefferson Smurfit Center for Entrepreneurial Studies: The Center, located at St. Louis University, maintains EWEB with links to Internet resources, a searchable bibliography on small business, and many other resources.
EntreWorld: EntreWorld has some excellent links to resources that may be useful to you. Click on Entrpreneur's Search Engine to access additional entrepreneur sites.
California Technology, Trade & Commerce: Here's the California Technology, Trade & Commerce Agency's Office of Small Business site.

Other Starting Points

BRINT: "Premier Collection of Contemporary Business, Management and Technology Issues" -- Wall Street Journal
"Largest Collection of Knowledge Management Literature" -- Wall Street Journal
"Best Business Information Source... Best General Business Pointer" -- Business Week
Library of Congress Internet Search Tools: The Library of Congress has put together a very comprehensive collection of resources for use in Internet research.
Library of Congress Indexes to Other WWW Services: Included are federal, state, and government indexes, library indexes, newspaper indexes, and others.
Pepperdine Libraries: The Pepperdine Library system contains a number of excellent on-line and off-line resources. It also has several business subject guides. The Law Library has links to some excellent legal research resources on the Web.
Latest Updates for This Page: If you are running this index from your local PC, this site will contain the latest updates.
Who Is?: If you need to check your sources, you can input a domain name and find out who to contact and how to contact them for more information. Just type in a domain name without the "www." For example, input "business-plan.com" without the quotes to find out who is responsible for the Web site for Out of Your Mind ... and Into the Marketplace®.

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Last modified on Monday, September 25, 2001.