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Purpose of Research Guide

This guide curates research and information sources for business. Use the side menu to navigate to relevant sources.

Email the University Libraries for guidance: Researchassistance@unc.edu

Industry Reports

IBISWorld Industry Reports
Covers the entire U.S. economy, providing in-depth and concise business intelligence and industry analysis. Global and China industry reports provide market information for many industries and business sectors.

Access: Off Campus Access is available for: UNC-Chapel Hill students, faculty, and staff; UNC Hospitals employees; UNC-Chapel Hill affiliated AHEC users.
Mintel Academic
Contains market research data and reports on consumer markets and products, demographics, consumer buying behavior and motivations, trends in global consumer markets. Many reports include Databooks with downloadable consumer survey data. U.S.-focused with some global coverage.

Access: Off Campus Access is available for: UNC-Chapel Hill students, faculty, and staff; UNC Hospitals employees; UNC-Chapel Hill affiliated AHEC users.
Coverage: 2001 -
BizMiner
Provides financial benchmarking and national, state, and regional industry statistics by up to 10-digit NAICS.

Access: Off Campus Access is available for: UNC-Chapel Hill students, faculty, and staff; UNC Hospitals employees; UNC-Chapel Hill affiliated AHEC users.
Coverage: Most recent 5 years for Industry Financial Reports, most recent 3 years for Industry Market Reports, most recent year for Competitive Market Analyzer and Retail Sales per Square Foot.
BCC Research
Industry and market research reports on major economic, scientific, and technological developments in industrial, pharmaceutical, and high technology organizations

Access: Off Campus Access is available for: UNC-Chapel Hill students, faculty, and staff; UNC Hospitals employees; UNC-Chapel Hill affiliated AHEC users.
Gartner
Gartner is a leading provider of research and analysis about the global information technology industry. Areas of focus include customer relationship management, business and market analysis, product descriptions and comparisons, information on trends, and the business of IT.

Access: Onyen log in is always required for UNC-Chapel Hill students, faculty, and staff; UNC Hospitals employees; UNC-Chapel Hill affiliated AHEC users. Walk-in users are not permitted access.
GlobalData Intelligence
Reports provide analysis, forecasts, news, and data for consumer industries such as suppliers, manufacturers and distribution channels, consumer insights and trends, company market share, pricing, and more. Search the Product Launch Analytics database by brand and product name, manufacturer, product category, health claim, flavor, ingredient and more.

Note: From login screen, select “IP Access” to access database. Then select “Consumer” in the “Access Your Subscriptions” menu.

Access: Students, faculty, and staff or AHEC users affiliated with UNC-CH with an AHEC Digital Library account may access from on- or off-campus, but must ALWAYS authenticate, EVEN when on-campus.
Euromonitor Passport
Provides detailed data and reports for international and consumer industries, including historic data from 1997 and market forecasts. Reports include market size, company and brand profiles and market share. Consumer information includes population trends, lifestyles, buying behavior. Export data into Excel. Great for international business.

Note: You will be asked to login. UNC affiliates only – no walk in access allowed.

Access: Off Campus Access is available for: UNC-Chapel Hill students, faculty, and staff; UNC Hospitals employees; UNC-Chapel Hill affiliated AHEC users.
Coverage: Varies. Most data for past few years, some back to 1977.
ABI/INFORM Collection
Provides international industry reports from Fitch, Plunkett, First/D&B, and GlobalData. Add pub(publication name) to your search to limit results to a specific report publisher. E.g. pub(Fitch) to limit results to Fitch reports.

Access: Off Campus Access is available for: UNC-Chapel Hill students, faculty, and staff; UNC Hospitals employees; UNC-Chapel Hill affiliated AHEC users.
Coverage: Coverage varies. Some academic journals start in the 1800s, and some newspapers start in the early 1900s.
Language: Primarily English. Over 20 languages total.

Industry Ratios (Financial & Performance)

IBISWorld Industry Reports
Provides ratios and other data in the "Competitive Landscape" and "Key Statistics" chapters of each industry report.

Access: Off Campus Access is available for: UNC-Chapel Hill students, faculty, and staff; UNC Hospitals employees; UNC-Chapel Hill affiliated AHEC users.
BizMiner
Provides corporate financial benchmarks and regional industry statistics.

Access: Off Campus Access is available for: UNC-Chapel Hill students, faculty, and staff; UNC Hospitals employees; UNC-Chapel Hill affiliated AHEC users.
Coverage: Most recent 5 years for Industry Financial Reports, most recent 3 years for Industry Market Reports, most recent year for Competitive Market Analyzer and Retail Sales per Square Foot.

Market Data & Mapping (demographics, spending, and/or psychographics)

SimplyAnalytics
Create maps, tables, and rankings from over 30,000 demographic, consumer spending, and psychographic variables. Covers the U.S. from states to neighborhood levels. Create your own optional account to save your searches and favorite variables and locations.

Access: Off Campus Access is available for: UNC-Chapel Hill students, faculty, and staff; UNC Hospitals employees; UNC-Chapel Hill affiliated AHEC users.
Statista
Provides statistics and survey results targeting business customers, faculty, and researchers. Includes statistics on economies, markets, and industries. Contains over one million statistics on more than 80,000 topics, covering 170 industries.

Access: Off Campus Access is available for: UNC-Chapel Hill students, faculty, and staff; UNC Hospitals employees; UNC-Chapel Hill affiliated AHEC users.

Census Narrative Profiles (current demographics)
Covers social, economic, housing and demographic data. Use "Place" for cities. From the American Community Survey.
Census: demographic subject links
Provides subject links to demographic tables from the American Community Survey. Use "Customize Table" to specify your geographies.
NC Dept of Commerce: area profiles and mapping (tapestries)
Provides demographic and market profiles of locations with North Carolina.

Esri Business Analyst Online
Access demographic, business, and consumer data for market analysis, including consumer lifestyle and buying behavior.

Note: To use Business Analyst Online, you will need to create an Organizational ArcGIS Online Account. To create an account:

1. "Sign in"
2. "Your ArcGIS organization's URL" (under ArcGIS login): unc.maps.arcgis.com
3. Click "Continue" then "UNC Chapel Hill SSO"
4. Sign in with your Onyen

For help creating an account or accessing Business Analyst, please contact one of our librarians.

Access: Students, faculty, staff and other UNC-Chapel Hill affiliates can access Business Analyst on or off campus using their Organizational ArcGIS Online Account.
PolicyMap
Create maps and tables from U.S. demographic and economic data. Does not include psychographics.

Access: Off Campus Access is available for: UNC-Chapel Hill students, faculty, and staff; UNC Hospitals employees; UNC-Chapel Hill affiliated AHEC users.
Euromonitor Passport
Provides reports and marketing data on countries, companies, markets, consumers, and cities from over 200 countries. Offers a single gateway to business intelligence on industries, countries and consumers. Focuses on consumer-oriented industries.

Access: Off Campus Access is available for: UNC-Chapel Hill students, faculty, and staff; UNC Hospitals employees; UNC-Chapel Hill affiliated AHEC users.
Coverage: Varies. Most data for past few years, some back to 1977.
GlobalData Intelligence
Reports provide analysis, forecasts, news, and data for consumer industries such as suppliers, manufacturers and distribution channels, consumer insights and trends, company market share, pricing, and more. Search the Product Launch Analytics database by brand and product name, manufacturer, product category, health claim, flavor, ingredient and more.

Note: From login screen, select “IP Access” to access database. Then select “Consumer” in the “Access Your Subscriptions” menu.

Access: Students, faculty, and staff or AHEC users affiliated with UNC-CH with an AHEC Digital Library account may access from on- or off-campus, but must ALWAYS authenticate, EVEN when on-campus.
Sage Data
Provides statistics on international markets of all sorts. For help, see the user guide.

Access:Off Campus Access is available for: UNC-Chapel Hill students, faculty, and staff; UNC Hospitals employees; UNC-Chapel Hill affiliated AHEC users.
Simmons Insights
Data on adult U.S. consumers includes attitudes and behaviors, media use, and buying habits. Demographic and psychographic data.

Access: Off Campus Access is available for: UNC-Chapel Hill students, faculty, and staff; UNC Hospitals employees; UNC-Chapel Hill affiliated AHEC users.
Data Axle Reference Solutions
Use Consumers/Lifestyles data set for market research and customer discovery.

Access: Off Campus Access is available for: UNC-Chapel Hill students, faculty, and staff; UNC Hospitals employees; UNC-Chapel Hill affiliated AHEC users. North Carolina residents with a borrower's card may access from off campus by visiting NCLive directly. Contact the Davis Library Service Desk for the NCLive password (instructions).
Coverage: Current information only

Market Research Reports

Mintel Academic
Contains market research data and reports on consumer markets and products, demographics, consumer buying behavior and motivations, trends in global consumer markets. Many reports include Databooks with downloadable consumer survey data. U.S.-focused with some global coverage.

Access: Off Campus Access is available for: UNC-Chapel Hill students, faculty, and staff; UNC Hospitals employees; UNC-Chapel Hill affiliated AHEC users.
Coverage: 2001 -
Euromonitor Passport
Provides detailed data and reports for international and consumer industries, including historic data from 1997 and market forecasts. Reports include market size, company and brand profiles and market share. Consumer information includes population trends, lifestyles, buying behavior. Export data into Excel. Great for international business.

Note: You will be asked to login. UNC affiliates only – no walk in access allowed.

Access: Off Campus Access is available for: UNC-Chapel Hill students, faculty, and staff; UNC Hospitals employees; UNC-Chapel Hill affiliated AHEC users.
Coverage: Varies. Most data for past few years, some back to 1977.
IBISWorld Industry Reports
Each IBIS industry report includes a detailed chapter on "Products & Markets".

Access: Off Campus Access is available for: UNC-Chapel Hill students, faculty, and staff; UNC Hospitals employees; UNC-Chapel Hill affiliated AHEC users.
Statista
Contains statistics, infographics, industry and market research reports and publicly-available data for over 25 countries on all topics. Download statistics and charts in Excel, PowerPoint, or PDF.

Note: UNC Chapel Hill currently has full access to Statista with the exception of the Global Consumer Survey and Market Studies.

Access: Off Campus Access is available for: UNC-Chapel Hill students, faculty, and staff; UNC Hospitals employees; UNC-Chapel Hill affiliated AHEC users.
BCC Research
Industry and market research reports on major economic, scientific, and technological developments in industrial, pharmaceutical, and high technology organizations

Access: Off Campus Access is available for: UNC-Chapel Hill students, faculty, and staff; UNC Hospitals employees; UNC-Chapel Hill affiliated AHEC users.

Private Companies

Orbis
Covers millions of publicly traded and privately held companies from around the world. Company records include directory facts, financial and ownership details, subsidiaries, names and titles for executives and directors, M&A deals, etc. Privately held companies do not have financial information.

Note: This resource does not currently work with Chrome browser
Note: Disable pop-up blockers to use this resource.

Access: Off Campus Access is available for: UNC-Chapel Hill students, faculty, and staff; UNC Hospitals employees; UNC-Chapel Hill affiliated AHEC users.
CB Insights
Provides information and independent analysis of private companies in a wide range of industries. A special focus on the financing, and mergers and acquisitions of these companies through private investors and venture capital and private equity firms.

Note:Users must register an account with a UNC email address. Contact Kenan Flagler Library Research Services at Researchtools@kenan-flagler.unc.edu with questions.

Access: Students, faculty, and staff or AHEC users affiliated with UNC-CH with an AHEC Digital Library account may access from on- or off-campus, but must ALWAYS authenticate, EVEN when on-campus.
Data Axle Reference Solutions
Contains directory information for millions of U.S. and Canadian businesses and consumers (white pages). Use Consumers/Lifestyles data for market research and customer discovery. Search by company name, geographic area, industry codes (NAICS/SIC), sales volume, etc. Create custom lists of up to 250 records that you can download to Excel.

Note: Users are not permitted access from IP addresses outside of the United States. Download limit is 250 records.

Access: Off Campus Access is available for: UNC-Chapel Hill students, faculty, and staff; UNC Hospitals employees; UNC-Chapel Hill affiliated AHEC users. North Carolina residents with a borrower's card may access from off campus by visiting NCLive directly. Contact the Davis Library Service Desk for the NCLive password (instructions).
Coverage: Current information only
IBISWorld Industry Reports
The US Company Benchmarking Profiles analyze thousands of public and private companies. Profiles consist of a company overview and breakdown of performance within industries of operation. Includes company financials, an industry market share breakdown, an industry competitor matrix, SWOT analysis, Products and Services, and Key Company Benchmarks.
Access by clicking "Company Research" in top navigation menu.

Access: Off Campus Access is available for: UNC-Chapel Hill students, faculty, and staff; UNC Hospitals employees; UNC-Chapel Hill affiliated AHEC users.

Hoover's Company Records (in Business Market Research Collection)
Provides profiles of 19,000 large private companies from around the world.

Nexis Uni
Covers international companies through its Company Dossier.

Access: Off Campus Access is available for: UNC-Chapel Hill students, faculty, and staff; UNC Hospitals employees; UNC-Chapel Hill affiliated AHEC users.

Roster of Secretaries of State/Lieutenant Governors
All 50 states make some level of corporate and business filings available online. In a few instances only limited information (such as name availability) is retrievable. The majority of the states, however, use their Web presence to disseminate a range of public business records -- and most of them offer access at no charge. This roster is from the National Association of Secretaries of State and includes the 50 states, DC and U.S. territories.

Public Companies

Orbis
Covers millions of publicly traded and privately held companies from around the world. Company records include directory facts, financial and ownership details, subsidiaries, names and titles for executives and directors, M&A deals, etc. Privately held companies do not have financial information.
Note: This resource does not currently work with Chrome browser.
Note: Disable pop-up blockers to use this resource.
Note: Instructions for access here.

Access: Off Campus Access is available for: UNC-Chapel Hill students, faculty, and staff; UNC Hospitals employees; UNC-Chapel Hill affiliated AHEC users.
Data Axle Reference Solutions
Contains directory information for millions of U.S. and Canadian businesses and consumers (white pages). Use Consumers/Lifestyles data for market research and customer discovery. Search by company name, geographic area, industry codes (NAICS/SIC), sales volume, etc. Create custom lists of up to 250 records that you can download to Excel.

Note: Users are not permitted access from IP addresses outside of the United States. Download limit is 250 records.

Access: Off Campus Access is available for: UNC-Chapel Hill students, faculty, and staff; UNC Hospitals employees; UNC-Chapel Hill affiliated AHEC users. North Carolina residents with a borrower's card may access from off campus by visiting NCLive directly. Contact the Davis Library Service Desk for the NCLive password (instructions).
Coverage: Current information only
Osiris
Contains information on over 110,000 publicly traded companies, banks, and insurance companies from around the world, including financial statement data. Provides ownership, subsidiaries, earnings estimates, stock data. Report formats reflect accounting procedures in the major world regions.
Note: This resource does not currently work with Chrome browser.
Note: Disable pop-up blockers to use this resource.
Note: Instructions for access here.

Access: Off Campus Access is available for: UNC-Chapel Hill students, faculty, and staff; UNC Hospitals employees; UNC-Chapel Hill affiliated AHEC users.
Coverage: 1996 - present
IBISWorld Industry Reports
The US Company Benchmarking Profiles analyze thousands of public and private companies. Profiles consist of a company overview and breakdown of performance within industries of operation. Includes company financials, an industry market share breakdown, an industry competitor matrix, SWOT analysis, Products and Services, and Key Company Benchmarks.
Access by clicking "Company Research" in top navigation menu.

Access: Off Campus Access is available for: UNC-Chapel Hill students, faculty, and staff; UNC Hospitals employees; UNC-Chapel Hill affiliated AHEC users.
CB Insights
Provides information and independent analysis of private companies in a wide range of industries. A special focus on the financing, and mergers and acquisitions of these companies through private investors and venture capital and private equity firms.

Note:Users must register an account with a UNC email address. Contact Kenan Flagler Library Research Services at Researchtools@kenan-flagler.unc.edu with questions.

Access: Students, faculty, and staff or AHEC users affiliated with UNC-CH with an AHEC Digital Library account may access from on- or off-campus, but must ALWAYS authenticate, EVEN when on-campus.

Capital IQ (Kenan-Flagler ONLY)
Capital IQ allows users to search for and screen for information on companies including in-depth financial information on publicly traded companies, information on investment firms, biographical information on corporate professionals, and transactions in both the public and private capital markets by a very wide range of company identification data, financial statement data, executive’s biographical characteristics, and deal or transaction specifics. (Source Vendor Web site)

Information can be exported to Excel.

SPECIAL NOTE: Because of licensing restrictions: Access to Capital IQ is restricted to current faculty, staff, and students of UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School.

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Users MUST use their @kenan-flagler.unc.edu email address when requesting an account.

Users MUST access through UNC Kenan-Flagler Research Tools & Library Resources web page. DO NOT bookmark the S&P Capital IQ login page.

Users will be required to enter their UNC onyen from both on-campus and off-campus. Then users will be able to enter their Capital IQ user id and password.

If you have any questions please contact David Ernsthausen.
Europages
Find information on some 3 million companies in 35 European countries. Search by company name, industry, country, or region of country. Each entry includes addresses, phone numbers, maybe an email contact, maybe a map of the location. You must select one of 26 languages before searching.

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Open Access

https://www.europages.com/
EDGAR
From the Securities & Exchange Commission. This site provides access to the full-text of 10-K, Proxies and other reports publicly traded companies are required to file with the SEC.

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Open Access

https://www.sec.gov/edgar/searchedgar/webusers.htm
SEDAR
Official site that provides access to most public securities documents and information filed by Canadian public companies and investment funds with the Canadian Securities Administrators (CSA) in the SEDAR filing system. SEDAR is a rough equivalent to the SEC’s EDGAR files but it is for Canadian companies.

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Open Access

https://www.sedar.com/

Government Regulation and Licensing

Small Business Advisors from EDPNC
Get free support and information from state and local resources with the Small Business Advisor team from the Economic Development Partnership of NC.
NC Business Licenses & Permits: NC Department of Commerce
Portal for North Carolina entrepreneurs and small businesses
NC Tax Information & Employer Requirements
From the North Carolina Department of Commerce
SBA: Stay Legally Compliant
From the Small Business Association
elaws: Employment Laws Assistance for Workers & Small Business (Dept. of Labor)
"Simulates the interaction you might have with an employment law expert." Also includes an Employment Law Guide.
Resources for Small Businesses (EPA)
Covers environmental regulations.

Financials

BizMiner
Find industry financial ratios, failure rates of businesses, local industry market research statistics, competitive market analysis, and more by US location (state, city, county, zip, or custom location). A great resource when developing business plans, or for any sort of entrepreneurship initiatives where you need to measure peer performance in an industry.

Access: Off Campus Access is available for: UNC-Chapel Hill students, faculty, and staff; UNC Hospitals employees; UNC-Chapel Hill affiliated AHEC users.
Coverage: Most recent 5 years for Industry Financial Reports, most recent 3 years for Industry Market Reports, most recent year for Competitive Market Analyzer and Retail Sales per Square Foot.

Census Business & Industry Data
A portal for all Census research on economic aspects, most based on NAICS codes.Includes the Economic Census, County Business Patterns, Retail Trade, the Annual Survey of Manufactures, and other reports.

Article Databases for Entrepreneurship

Business Source Premier
Covers scholarly articles for all business subjects: marketing, management, economics, finance, accounting, international business, and more. Also includes financial data, MarketLine company profiles, Harvard Business Review articles, SWOT analyses, and more.

Access: Off Campus Access is available for: UNC-Chapel Hill students, faculty, and staff; UNC Hospitals employees; UNC-Chapel Hill affiliated AHEC users.
Coverage: Varies widely.
ABI/INFORM Collection

Articles from academic journals, trade publications, market and industry research reports, general business magazines. Topics covered include leadership, management, economics, banking, finance, accounting, international business and economics.

Access: Off Campus Access is available for: UNC-Chapel Hill students, faculty, and staff; UNC Hospitals employees; UNC-Chapel Hill affiliated AHEC users.
Coverage: Coverage varies. Some academic journals start in the 1800s, and some newspapers start in the early 1900s.
Language: Primarily English. Over 20 languages total.
ProQuest Entrepreneurship Database
Includes business plan templates, market research reports, company profiles, business journals and news

Access: Off Campus Access is available for: UNC-Chapel Hill students, faculty, and staff; UNC Hospitals employees; UNC-Chapel Hill affiliated AHEC users.
Entrepreneurship Research and Policy Network
One of a number of specialized research networks within the Social Science Research Network (SSRN). It features abstracts and full-text published and working papers covering the intersection of entrepreneurship with other subject areas such as economics, finance, law and the social sciences. It also hosts job listings and calls for papers.

Access: Off Campus Access is available for: UNC-Chapel Hill students, faculty, and staff; UNC Hospitals employees; UNC-Chapel Hill affiliated AHEC users.
ProQuest Business Market Research Collection
Contains company records and analysis of major global and regional economic and political developments.

Access: Off Campus Access is available for: UNC-Chapel Hill students, faculty, and staff; UNC Hospitals employees; UNC-Chapel Hill affiliated AHEC users.

Sample Business Plans

Bplans
Provides over 500 plans, from a software company than sells business plan software.

ProQuest Entrepreneurship Database
Include the phrase "Business Plan" in your search, for example: coffee and business plan.

Access: Off Campus Access is available for: UNC-Chapel Hill students, faculty, and staff; UNC Hospitals employees; UNC-Chapel Hill affiliated AHEC users.

SBA: Write Your Business Plan
Business plan templates from Small Business Administration

Tutorials & Guides for Entrepreneurship

Market Research Basics
Online tutorial for an overview of research strategies and information sources for market research.
Market Research as Storytelling
A framework to understand how market research is like telling a story

Campus Resources for Entrepreneurs

Small Business Technology & Development Center at UNC
Get free and low-cost business counseling. Explore online resources and trainings.
Innovate Carolina
Campus hub for entrepreneurship and innovation. Offers technology commercialization support and services for startups.

Contact Us

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