International Business: Industry profiles

Suggestions for international market research, and finding information about different countries.
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Why use these?

Use industry profiles when:

  • You're not already familiar with the industry and need background information
  • You need expert information on current conditions in the industry

Industry profiles will help you understand the history and current conditions in an industry, how is the industry organized, what are the threats and opportunities, and more.  They will usually also tell you which are the leading companies in the industry.  Some focus more on background info, others more on current conditions.

Some of these profiles will have lots of data in them, others only a sample.  If you need lots of data, please look at the resources available on the Trade Data page.

Databases for Industry Profiles

Below are links to industry reports from individual publishers, and to databases that contain industry reports. Many of these reports are available in general business databases:  where possible, the links go directly to that content, not to a general search screen.  But where such direct linking is not possible, the links go to the main database search screen (e.g. Passport).

Two notes about MarketLine reports:

MarketLine reports are available in two different databases, Ebsco's Business Source Premier, and Refinitiv Workspace's After Market Research module (aka AMR or Investext). Each has advantages and disadvantages. 

  1. For slightly easier searching, use Business Source Premier
  2. For the most complete collection of MarketLine industry and company reports, use the AMR Research collection in Workspace; Ebsco does not always receive the current reports in a timely way. Notice that Workspace requires registration for an individual account. 
    Instructions for searching in the Workspace AMR collection are available here.

Links to reports from individual publishers or vendors:

These reports are pulled from large aggregator databases (ABI-Inform Trade & Industry, Business Source Premier, and Business Insights Essentials). The interfaces of these large databases allow me to create these individual links, which is not possible in other interfaces.

Links to databases:

The After Market Research (AMR) module in Workspace

The After Market Research module in Workspace (formerly Refinitiv) is a collection of research reports written by investment analysts from many different research companies.  Some of the 'big names' are:  Deutsche Bank, JP Morgan, William Blair, AE Edwards, CitiBank, Credit Suisse, and many more; these contributor companies can and do change over time.  It also includes reports from market research companies (non-broker research companies) such as MarketLine.

About the content:
  • Reports are embargoed by 2-3 weeks (i.e. we get delayed access)
  • Over 1,400 providers (contributors or publishers) of in-depth research reports on companies and industries worldwide
  • An industry report is defined as a report which discusses at least three companies.  Although many of the industry reports offer very valuable content, this oddball definition means that some industry reports are less useful.  Equally, the indexing or tagging for industry reports is very inconsistent. I do not recommend using this filter.
  • The module is also sometimes just called Research, or AMR.  Investext is the original name of the module.
Download limitation:

For each 24-hour period, you are allowed to download a maximum of 150 pages of AMR content.  Below is more discussion about how to avoid downloading extraneous pages.

Getting to the AMR module:

The instructions below are for searching directly in the AMR module. Of course you can also get to reports for specific companies just by starting with a search on an individual ticker or company name.

Assuming you have already registered for an individual account, once you have logged in:

  1. Click on Research (see screenshot below)
  2. Then click on Advanced Research

Refinitiv WS advanced search - getting to AMR

 

RWS After Market Research module filter menuThe AMR filters:

The AMR filter menu is located in the left margin and has many options! 

At left is a smaller, composite screenshot of the complete filter menu. To see the screenshot full-size, right-click on the image and select "Open image in new tab".  Not ideal, but there it is. 

Below are suggestions on filters to use or consider.  The line numbers below correspond to the numbers in the screenshot image. 

To exit an opened filter menu, be aware you usually have to click on a Done button.  

 

  1. Date range:  The default period is the current 90 days. When searching for more than just one company, change this to 1-2 years.
  2. Keyword search:  Here's where you enter keywords to search WITHIN the documents.  
  3. Sort By Relevance:  Notice this checkbox.
  4. Contributors:  You can enter the names of specific research companies here.
  5. Industry: There is an expandable hierarchical menu of industries. 
  6. Report types:  You can specify that you want industry reports here; be aware that the indexing for this filter is not reliable.
  7. Subjects/Topics:  The filter for Initiation of Coverage is here.  If you're starting from a company search only, this filter will only appear if the time period you've chosen includes an "initiation of coverage" report.  When the time period does not include such a report, the filter does not appear.
  8. Page count:  To eliminate shorter, less substantive reports, enter a number here (e.g. greater than 10 or 15).
  9. Search:  To apply the filters you have selected, click on Search.  

 

AMR download/viewing allowance:

You are allowed a total of 150 pages of AMR content per 24-hour period.  Since some AMR reports can be 50 or 100 pages in length, obviously you need to pick and choose carefully. 

On any AMR search results screen, you will see your remaining download allowance in red. (See arrow at right in screenshot below.) The remaining pages number will change as you use your page allowance. When you hover over the red text, the mouse-over message will appear (orange border below). 

Refinitiv WS AMR allowance remaining message

 

Refinitiv WS AMR pdf icon for table of contentsStrategies for reducing the number of pages you download:
  1. Keep track of the page numbers for each report, listed in the Pages column. (Arrow at right in screenshot below.)
  2. Click on the white-on-black PDF icon in the Info column (enlarged detail screenshot at right; look for middle arrow in screenshot below).
  3. Click on Doc Info (screenshot below) to see the table of contents (toc) for the report before downloading it. Do NOT click on Download Document!
  4. From the table of contents menu, deselect sections such as the disclosure statement, some charts and/or appendices.

    Refinitiv WS AMR get table of contents

  5. Look in the Analyst column (screenshot below): Ideally, there should be the name of an individual analyst there. If this column is empty, or only says "research team" or repeats the name of the contributor company, be wary! This makes it more likely that the 'report' was compiled or scraped from publicly available data by bots.
  6. Look in the Estimate Rating and Recommendation Rating columns:  These ratings are only provided for the "top of the line" contributor companies. When available, these provide a rating of the reliability of the individual analyst as compared to peer analysts. These ratings are not for the contributor company overall.  When there are no star ratings, that means that this contributor company has either less history, less authority, or is not a sell-side research company.
    ➤  Hover over the "I" Information icons for more detail about how to understand the star ratings.

    Refinitiv AMR results display

Emerging Markets Monitor (in Business Source Premier)

Business Monitor International logoThis RSS feed for the journal Emerging Markets Monitor (from BMI) includes articles with updates on both industries and countries. To see the full list of reports and to search in them, if you're on campus click on the link 'View Website' below.  From there you can also refine or focus the search by adding your company's name to the keyword search.

But if you're off-campus (or using the VPN, or already logged in to the proxy server) clicking on the links below won't get you very far. To read these articles or search in the database while off-campus, please click here instead.

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