The Best of the Best of the Business Web curates and organizes 200+ of the most reliable and substantive free research resources into dozens of the most sought-after business research related topical areas.
These include entries for:
Advertising...Business Valuation...Company Information...Consumer Research...Data Analytics...Economic Information...Financial Information...Healthcare...Industry Information...International Trade Market Research...Mergers & Acquisitions...Patents & Trademarks... Scholarly Information...Search Engines...Prospect Research...Statistical Information...Venture Capital and dozens of others.
"Highly useful for business librarians or researchers"
Reviewed in: Library Journal, Nov 2019
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Table of Contents:
Categories:
Advertising ......................................................................................................................................4
Big Data .......................................................................................................................................... 5
Brexit............................................................................................................................................... 6
Business News ................................................................................................................................ 8
Business Research ......................................................................................................................... 11
Business Valuation........................................................................................................................ 14
Company Information ..................................................................................................................15
Consumer Research .......................................................................................................................31
Country Information ....................................................................................................................38
Crime and Corruption ..................................................................................................................41
Data Analytics ................................................................................................................................45
Databases and Datasets ................................................................................................................. 47
Data Visualization ......................................................................................................................... 54
Demographic Data .........................................................................................................................57
E-Commerce ................................................................................................................................. 60
Economic Development ................................................................................................................62
Economic Information ..................................................................................................................64
Educational Resources .................................................................................................................. 69
E-journals .......................................................................................................................................72
Emerging Technologies ................................................................................................................73
Entrepreneurship ........................................................................................................................... 76
Expert Sources ............................................................................................................................... 80
Fake News ..................................................................................................................................... 84
Financial Information.................................................................................................................... 86
Geographic Research .................................................................................................................... 92
Government Information ..............................................................................................................93
Government Regulations ..............................................................................................................99
Healthcare Industry ..................................................................................................................... 102
Human Resources ....................................................................................................................... 103
Industry Information ...................................................................................................................105
International Business Information .............................................................................................117
International Financial Information ............................................................................................128
International Trade ......................................................................................................................133
Internet Research .........................................................................................................................138
Labor and Employment............................................................................................................... 140
Market Research ......................................................................................................................... 144
Mergers and Acquisitions ........................................................................................................... 154
Patents and Trademarks ..............................................................................................................155
People Information...................................................................................................................... 159
Philanthropy ................................................................................................................................160
Primary Sources .......................................................................................................................... 161
Prospect Research ....................................................................................................................... 162
Public Policy ............................................................................................................................... 163
Scholarly Information ................................................................................................................. 167
Search Engines ............................................................................................................................ 173
Search Strategies .......................................................................................................................... 176
Social Listening ............................................................................................................................178
Social Media ................................................................................................................................ 179
Social Sciences............................................................................................................................. 183
Software Reviews ....................................................................................................................... 185
Statistical Information .................................................................................................................186
Sustainability............................................................................................................................... 189
Teaching Tools............................................................................................................................191
Trends and Forecasts................................................................................................................... 193
Venture Capital ........................................................................................................................... 195
Webinars ..................................................................................................................................... 199
Index ............................................................................................................................................ 200
Advertising
SITE: adbrands.net
URL: http://www.adbrands.net
CATEGORY: Advertising
PURPOSE: Provides news of recent advertising campaigns, profiles of leading advertisers by sector and geography, recent popular ads, new campaigns and other information of interest to those following the global advertising industry.
FEE/FREE: FREE and FEE-BASED
SOURCE CHECK: Adbrands is published by Mind Advertising Ltd, a small privately held firm located in the U.K. The company first launched the site in 1997 under its original name, Mind-Advertising.com.
OUR VIEW: Although Adbrands is primarily geared for its paying subscribers, there is a wealth of valuable and detailed data on advertisers, the advertising industry, and advertising campaigns available at no charge. You can sample a range of profiles of major advertisers (by sector or geography), view a mini- directory of the largest consolidated agency networks, keep up with industry news, and more. It’s timely, easy to use, and published by a long-time provider of advertising agency information. Subscribers also get access to the Adbrands accounts assignment database, which consists of over 30,000 account assignments for over 7,000 individual brands. A paid subscription costs $45 per month or $220 per year. Consider this site if you need up to date data, news, and profiles on key players in the global advertising industry. March 2015
Brexit
SITE: Brexit’s Winners and Losers: How the UK Decision Will Impact Europe’s VC Ecosystem
URL: http://tinyurl.com/zjtov4m
CATEGORY: Brexit
PURPOSE: Analyzes how the U.K. Brexit decision will change how venture capital operates in Europe
FEE/FREE: FREE
SOURCE CHECK: This article was made available by CB Insights, a major provider of news, databases, and analysis on emerging industries, venture capital, startups and innovation. CB Insights is located in New York City.
OUR VIEW: The UK has held a pivotal position in European venture capital as a hub for both investors and startups. Key concerns explored in this article include: European vs. UK funding and deals; VC funds, LPs, and talent; London’s status as a financial-technology hub; and regulatory uncertainty over biotech. July 2016
SITE: Out and Down: Mapping the Impact of Brexit
URL: https://www.eiu.com/public/topical_report.aspx?campaignid=Brexit
CATEGORY: Brexit
PURPOSE: This special report by the Economist Intelligence Unit, which was published right before the Brexit vote was taken provides data, charts, and analysis to forecast the impact of the leave decision on key industries such as finance, retail, automotive, healthcare, energy and telecommunications.
FEE/FREE: FREE
SOURCE CHECK: The U.K.-based Economist Intelligence Unit is one of the world’s leading provider of economic news, reports and analysis, and is the publisher of the Economist magazine
EXCERPT/KEY POINTS: Financial Services: The UK financial services would lose access to its economic hinterland in Europe causing firms to shift away from London to ensure access to the single market. Retail: UK retailers will face greater supply chain complexity and regulatory divergence as domestic sales slump while consumers wait on the outcome of negotiations. Automotive: The UK is a sizeable market in its own right. In fact an EU exit may create opportunities for locally based carmakers. However, supply chains would experience disruption. Healthcare: Pharmaceutical exports, access to medicines, and research grants could all be at risk if the UK leaves the EU. Any economic downturn would also affect NHS spending. Energy: Regardless of Brexit the UK will need to remain intrinsically linked to the European energy market and the frameworks which govern it. Telecommunications: Investment and revenue in the UK would only see a slight fall but uncertainty over the future of pan-European roaming charges could put consumers at risk. July 2016
SITE: UK House of Commons Library Research Notes
URL: http://tinyurl.com/zjq7xol
CATEGORY: Brexit
PURPOSE: This is a continuously updated site published by the library reference site InfoDocket listing links and offering a short description to the latest U.K. House of Commons research notes on the various impacts of the Brexit vote.
FEE/FREE: FREE
SOURCE CHECK: InfoDocket, which is part of Library Journal magazine, provides regular updates of substantive and valuable reports and documents of value to libraries and researchers. Its editor, Gary Price, is well known in the library and information industry. The reports themselves are published by the U.K government.
OUT VIEW: Titles of recent reports listed and linked to on this site include: What Next for UK fisheries? How Will it Affect Transport?; EU Budget and the UK’s Contribution; Tax After the EU Referendum; Pensions After the EU Referendum; Financial Services After the Referendum; Brexit and IP: a Primer (via Managing Intellectual Property). July 2016
Business News
SITE: Business Information Industry Association: Industry Library
URL: https://www.biia.com/category/business-information-2
CATEGORY: Business News
PURPOSE: Provides abstracts and short articles related to news and developments impacting the business information arena, including new resources and databases, mergers and acquisitions among vendors, conference presentations, and more.
FEE/FREE: FREE
SOURCE CHECK: The site is a creation of the Business Information Industry Association, a non-profit association based in Hong Kong. The BIIA was formed in 2005 as a membership organization for business information vendors, as well as users, regulators, as well as government and public information workers.
OUR VIEW: We were pleasantly surprised to come across this business information membership group which we had not encountered before. Although much of its information and resources are restricted to its members, a good deal of news, charts, graphs, industry summaries and other data compilations and analyses about the business information industry is available for free, via this Industry Library and on other segments. It’s an intriguing site for keeping up with new business information vendors that you may not know about, and learning of new products, features, capabilities and news in the industry. Consider this site when you want to find news and developments in the business information industry. November 2017
SITE: CNBC: Search
URL: https://www.cnbc.com/search
CATEGORY: Business News
PURPOSE: The search function at the online site for the CNBC television network allows users to search the CNBC archive for news, stock quotes and video clips.
FEE/FREE: FREE
SOURCE CHECK: CNBC is part of NBC Universal Network, which itself is owned by Comcast. CNBC’s headquarters is located in Englewood Cliffs, NJ.
OUR VIEW: CNBC is one of the most prominent business news sites in the world, and this is one of the best news network search sites we’ve come across. When you enter a word or phrase, the search engine automatically narrows your search with each term, and refreshes and displays the current results. The results page highlights your key words in the headline; surfaces the ticker of the company or companies mentioned, and shows you the general subject area that your results are categorized under so you can do further targeted searches. You can also choose your results to focus on news, articles, reports, videos, reports, or press releases and have them ranked either by newest or by relevance. Perhaps the most impressive part of the search function is its archive-we found results going back over 10 years, which makes this site not just valuable for current news searching, but deeper archival as well. Consider this site if you want to find media and press coverage of companies and business news topic, both timely and historical back up to 10 years. October 2018.
SITE: Daily Dispatch
URL: https://datausa.io/
CATEGORY: Business News
PURPOSE: This site allows the visitor to sign up to receive an email newsletter from the Economist magazine. That newsletter allows the subscriber to choose three articles to read at no cost on the Economist.com each week. Subscribers also have the option to download special reports.
FEE/FREE: FREE
SOURCE: The Economist is one of the world’s leading business news magazines and it reports and analyzes news, events, and trends in business, society, economics, culture and technology. It has been published and operated independently since 1843 and is headquartered in London.
OUR VIEW: As a researcher, you certainly know about the Economist and likely also know of its reputation as a leading objective, evidence-based, source for probing (and witty!) analyses of news, events and trends from around the globe. You probably also know that it is an expensive publication. But you may not know of the appealing possibility to read three articles online each week at literally no cost! As a big fan of this publication ourselves (it is one of our most trusted information sources), we highly recommend taking advantage of this offer. Consider this site if you need succinct, cogent, fact-based analyses of world events but do not want or cannot afford a full subscription to the magazine. May 2018
SITE: The Economist: Radio
URL: https://www.economist.com/podcasts/
CATEGORY: Business News/Podcast
PURPOSE: A series of downloadable podcasts covering a wide range of timely and interesting international business news stories, developments, trends and feature stories.
FEE/FREE: FREE
SOURCE CHECK: The podcasts are part of The Economist’s website (economist.com), the publisher of the highly regarded Economist magazine.
OUR VIEW: The Economist is one of our own favorite trusted sources for top notch, credible and deep analysis on matters about global business, economics, society, technology, culture and politics, news and features. It is an expensive journal to subscribe to though, and while some of it is free on the Web, much of it is behind a paywall. This “radio” section is one more place to tap into the Economist’s highly regarded reporting and analysis at no cost at all. Consider this site if you enjoy podcasts and want to hear high quality “BBC-like” analyses of world business news and events. January 2019.
Business Research
SITE: BRASS Business Guides
URL: http://brass.libguides.com
CATEGORY: Business Research
PURPOSE: An annotated listing of curated and recommended free and fee-based business research resources, covering hundreds of topics, with links to the listed sites.FEE/FREE: FREE
SOURCE CHECK: The listing was created by “BRASS,” the Business Reference and Services Section division of the American Library Association.
OUR VIEW: There are various resources available where you can get recommendations on the “best” business resources (including our own Best of the Business Web of course!), and this site is particularly noteworthy and worth spending time browsing. Not only are the sites selected by some of the best business research experts around, the scope of topics covered is extensive, it is simple to use—you can either browse categories from accounting to taxation, or conduct a keyword search on the fulltext—and it is all very timely as well! Note that the criteria employed for selection is: quality of content; ease of use; and technical execution. Consider this site if you want to learn of new resources that may be useful to your current or anticipated business research projects. January 2016
SITE: Case Center
URL: http://www.thecasecentre.org/educators/casemethod/resources/freecasesoverview/
CATEGORY: Business Research
PURPOSE: Provides access to dozens of business case studies from business schools and institutions from around the world.
FEE/FREE: FREE
SOURCE CHECK: The Case Center is a non-for-profit membership organization with headquarters in the U.K. at Cranford College and in the U.S. at Babson college. Its stated mission is to be “dedicated to advancing the case method worldwide, sharing knowledge, wisdom and experience to inspire and transform business education across the globe.”
OUR VIEW: Very often a business research project requires locating case studies, and while these can be found here and there on the Web, it is extremely convenient to have some of the most authoritative and respected publishers of business case studies all in one place. The Case Center attempts to do just that, providing access to what it claims to be the largest collection of business case studies. While many are free-based there are lots of free ones too, available from leading business schools like Stanford, Copenhagen Business School, MIT and others. While valuable for potentially any type of business research, the site is particularly well suited for business professors and graduate students. Consider this site when you are looking for business case studies. January 2017
SITE: China Business
URL: https://www.library.hbs.edu/Find/Guides/China-Business
CATEGORY: Business Research
PURPOSE: An annotated listing (LibGuide) of a curated selection of the best data sources for doing business research on or about China. Key segments of the guide are: country overview/statistics; environment; financial markets; in the news; historical sources; and socio-demographics.
FEE/FREE: FREE (though includes many fee-based sources)
SOURCE CHECK: The guide is a creation of the librarians at the Baker Library/Bloomberg Center at the Harvard Business School.
OUR VIEW: There are lots of lists of links on business resources on China on the Web, but we like this list because it is curated by authorities in doing research on China, and from one of the world’s leading business schools. It can be useful not only for locating free resources, but identifying which fee-based databases to either purchase or find access to that provide sought after company, market, financial and other important business information on China. Consider this site if you need to find top resources of business information on China. June 2017
SITE: Cottrill Research Blog
URL: https://www.cottrillresearch.com/blog/
CATEGORY: Business Research
PURPOSE: This blog was created and written by Jeanette Jones, the founder and principal of Cottrill Research, a business research, advisory, information monitoring and consulting company, with a special focus on serving procurement professionals.
FEE/FREE: FREE
SOURCE CHECK: Cottrill research was founded in 2013 and is located in Las Vegas, NV. Jones’ experience includes establishing libraries for Arthur Anderson and JP Morgan Chase; providing research services for Wachovia’s Strategic Sourcing Group; authoring books on market intelligence and research for procurement professionals; and teaching library science at Ohio Dominican University. Jones has an MLS from Kent State.
OUR VIEW: We only know of a handful of substantive business research bloggers, and we are delighted to add Jones’ site to our list of favorites. Although focused on sources and strategies for procurement pros, much if not most of her succinct and useful posts are valuable for any kind of business research professional. Some recent blog entries include: Interest is Growing for Privacy Minded Search Engines in Europe; Google is Building a Search Engine for Fact Checking; Two Procurement- Related Offerings That Are Examples of Trends Disrupting Market Research; GovShop is a Welcome Research Resource for Government Procurement; and Data- Rich FAO Launches Open Access for All Publications. Consider this site when you need to keep up with business and competitive intelligence news, products and resources, particularly those related to procurement. November 2018
Business Valuation
SITE: BVR Market Data: Free Resources
URL: http://www.bvresources.com/defaulttextonly.asp?f=downloads
CATEGORY: Business Valuation
PURPOSE: Links to free news, sites, and reports on the topic of business valuation
FEE/FREE: FREE (Registration required)
SOURCE CHECK: BVR stands for Business Valuation Resources, a company that produces newsletters, databases, webinars and a range of information services devoted to business valuation. It is headquartered in Portland OR.
OUR VIEW: We recently came across this organization and was impressed by the breadth and detail of its coverage of topics related to business valuation. These range from databases on mergers and acquisitions, to in-depth newsletters, financial evaluation instruments and more. Although most of its offerings are fee- based, it does offer sample data sets and various free resources that appear substantive and worth reviewing. Consider this site if you are interested in learning about how to value one or more businesses. March 2016
Company Information
SITE: The 100 Most Sustainable US Companies
URL: https://www.barrons.com/articles/these-stocks-are-winning-as-ceos-push-for-a-sustainable-future-51549657527?mod=barpkt19
CATEGORY: Company Information
PURPOSE: Provides a ranking of the most sustainable companies in the US.
FEE/FREE: FREE
SOURCE CHECK: Barron’s is the popular and prominent newspaper and online site, which is published by The Wall Street Journal, and part of Dow Jones Inc.
OUR VIEW: There are several things we like about this particular list-it is from an authoritative source, it is quite timely, the methodology is clearly explained, data is compared from the previous year, and there is a great deal of explanatory text with the chart. We also liked the fact that the lists are broken into a variety of sub-categories. Consider this site if you need to find out which companies are doing the best job in the area of sustainability. July 2019
SITE: The 2019 Inc 5000
URL: https://www.inc.com/nick-devlin/interactive-map-growth-revenue-2019-inc5000.html
CATEGORY: Company Information
PURPOSE: An interactive listing of the 5,000 fastest growing privately held companies in the US
FEE/FREE: FREE
SOURCE CHECK: The list is a creation of Inc. magazine, and the publication describes its methodology as follows (excerpted): Companies on the 2019 Inc. 5000 are ranked according to percentage revenue growth from 2015 to 2018. To qualify, companies must have been founded and generating revenue by March 31, 2015. They must be U.S.-based, privately held, for-profit, and independent--not subsidiaries or divisions of other companies as of December 31, 2018. The minimum revenue required for 2015 is $100,000; the minimum for 2018 is $2 million.
OUR VIEW: First, a shout out to our friend and colleague Gary Price at Library Journal’s InfoDocket who highlighted this source earlier this month. Not only does this site cover hard to research privately held firms, it was compiled by a well-known and credible source, and is free as well. In addition, you can also perform a range of custom sorting and interactive manipulation. For instance, there is an interactive heat map visualization of the US that shows where the fastest growing firms are, and that map is clickable so if you want to bring up information on specific firm, you can do so and then link to that company’s web site. You can also view the entire list of 5,000 firms, and sort it in several ways: by industry, state, city, and number of times on list. Consider this site when you need information on fast growing privately held companies in the US. August 2019
SITE: Analyzing Analyst Recommendations
URL: https://www.sec.gov/tm/reportspubs/investor-publications/investorpubsanalystshtm.html
CATEGORY: Company Information
PURPOSE: A guide for readers of investment analyst reports that provides advice and guidance on how to be an informed, skeptical and critical reader of recommendations and analyses found in investment analyst reports.
FEE/FREE: FREE
SOURCE CHECK: This advisory brief was created by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)
OUR VIEW: One of the most highly sought-after types of company and industry analyses sources are detailed reports written by investment analysts. While prepared primarily for investors, these are also excellent sources for obtaining all types of insights, and insider type analyses of a business’s strengths, challenges, positioning and strategy within its industry. However, because these represent an analyst’s (informed but) subjective views, it can be hard to determine how to evaluate a report for value, accuracy, and reliability. This is a great source, then, particularly for beginners or those new to investment analysis reports. Consider this site if you use investment analysts reports to evaluate and understand individual companies, as well as the broader industries they operate in. August 2018
SITE: Bloomberg: Investing and Stock Research
URL: http://www.bloomberg.com
CATEGORY: Company Information
PURPOSE: Snapshot profiles on thousands of private and public companies in the United States and around the world.
FEE/FREE: FREE
SOURCE CHECK: Bloomberg.com is one of the largest and most prominent providers of business information in the United State
OUR VIEW: Not only is the data here provided by a top-notch source (Bloomberg with data provided by McGraw-Hill Financial’s S&P Capital IQ), but it is extremely comprehensive. It covers companies large and small; public and private; and those in the U.S and globally. While the data provided for any individual company varies, you can often find, for certain private companies you will find a short textual description, when founded, the names of key executives and recent developments; while for public companies you will typically see news, financials, earnings, ownerships, people, and various charts. This site also provides general rankings such as best and worst performing companies and industries by region. Consider this site if you need to get some basic and key data on any company in the world. September 2015
SITE: Buzzfile
URL: https://www.buzzfile.com/home/basic
CATEGORY: Company Information
PURPOSE: Buzzfile provides a searchable database of over 17 million public and privately held companies, not-for-profits, governmental agencies, schools and other institutions in the United States. All publicly traded companies are covered, and, according to the company’s President and founder, so are “virtually all private companies” in the US as well. The site is updated every other month.
FEE/FREE: FREE and FEE-BASED
SOURCE CHECK: Buzzfile was launched in November 2011 by Aziz Akin, who currently is the President. Akin had previously been Vice President of Business Development for a leading commercial real estate market data company, and previous to that position, served in key management roles at major information industry firms such as ProQuest, Dow Jones and Thomson Reuters. The actual data itself on Buzzfile is licensed from Dun & Bradstreet, as well as the US Census Bureau and the Department of Labor.
OUR VIEW: This site was a real find, as it is difficult to locate truly new, innovative and valuable company search sites. While Buzzfile seems to be geared primarily for Academic career centers, it has great value for all company researchers, and offers greater coverage, more search capabilities and more types of data than others we have seen in recent memory. There is also additional complementary information such as demographics data for the area where the target firm is located; the name and contact for one or more key executives; names of nearby businesses; revenue/employee count and more. Note that there is a fee- based premium service (Buzzfile Professional) for more precise marketing andprospecting screening type uses. Consider this site when you need to find data on U.S.-based companies, particularly smaller, privately held ones. March 2018
SITE: Companies House
URL: https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/
CATEGORY: Company Information
PURPOSE: This site permits free searching and viewing of the official documents and data that U.K. companies have filed with the government. There are about 170 million records in the database.
FEE/FREE: FREE
SOURCE CHECK: Companies House is the official UK agency that incorporates and dissolves companies; and collects and makes available data that those companies are legally required to make available to the public.
OUR VIEW: Until very recently it was not possible to conduct a search of U.K. company filings at no charge and retrieve detailed data. But in the middle of 2015, Companies House announced a free search service. While still in beta, we found the site works perfectly well and is easy to use. Researchers can locate key details on all UK companies required to file (in the U.K. these are called “limited” companies) and can review data such as financial accounts, and details on directors and secretaries throughout the life of the company. Additional information such as archival reports are available too, but on a paid subscription basis. Consider this site if you need to find data on companies located in the U.K. September 2016