Library Guides: Conducting Industry Research: Industry Overviews

Best Sources for Industry Overviews

IBISWorld has the broadest coverage of industries. Our subscription covers the US primarily.

S&P covers industries at a macro level, but has a deeper archive.

Statista has Industry Dossiers that gather a lot of data, but have less analysis. It does have international coverage.

IBISWorld This link opens in a new window
Market Research Source
IBISWorld has market research and analysis on over 700 industries.
S&P Global NetAdvantage This link opens in a new window
Features S & P's Industry Surveys, which provide macro-level analysis of 56 major industries. Also includes company profiles and financial data with analyst rankings of investment potential as well information about company executives.
Statista This link opens in a new window
Statista collects data from a broad range of government and commercial sources. Data can be downloaded in Excel or pre-formatted for PowerPoint. Statista also includes reports from market research companies.

Other Sources for Industry Reports

Business Source Complete has reports from a variety of sources, but not all of the reports are current.

Passport focuses on consumer markets, but can have useful information on the industries supplying them.

Business Source Complete This link opens in a new window
Use the advanced search and limit to Industry Profile.
Article database that includes trade publications, academic journals, industry profiles, country information and company profiles, which include SWOT analyses. Full text is often available.
Use the FindIt links to locate full text of articles that are not included in the database.
Passport (Euromonitor) This link opens in a new window
Market research from Euromonitor. Reports on consumer markets around the world. Use the browse reports option to browse by industry or country. We especially recommend the Consumer Lifestyles reports, which give detailed information on consumer demographics in over 70 countries. Passport also contains summary statistics on consumer products in the menu search
Mintel Academic This link opens in a new window
Market research on consumer markets in the U.S.
Market research on U.S. consumer markets.
You must create an account to save sections of reports. Only uchicago.edu or chicagobooth.edu will be accepted.
BCC Research This link opens in a new window
Market research on technology and health sciences. Includes a few consumer industries.
BCC publishes market research reports on materials, technology, life sciences and energy.
First Research Industry Profiles via ProQuest This link opens in a new window
First Research produces brief industry overviews for 150 industries. Designed for interview research and don't have as much detail as other sources.

First Research produces brief industry overviews for 150 industries. These are primarily consumer segments but there are some manufacturing sectors as well. These reports are designed for prospective employees and don't have as much detail as other sources.
RKMA Market Research Handbooks This link opens in a new window
Broad overviews of selected industries.
Richard K. Miller & Associates (RKMA), founded in 1972, publishes handbooks focused
on marketing and the consumer marketplace. With over 30,000 copies in print, RKMA
ranks as one of the country's largest market research publishers.
RKMA established itself as a leading market analyst and futurist firm in the early 1980s
with its research on advanced computing. The forecasts of Richard Miller, founder and
president of the firm, on the commercialization of computer graphics, real-time supply
chain management, industrial automation, and other emerging technologies were
amazingly accurate. RKMA first wrote about the Internet (then called Arpanet) in 1984.

My Industry Isn't Covered

Not all industries are covered in our major sources, so you may need to build your own analysis. Look for related industries in the sources above and articles from trade journals and news sources in these databases.

ABI/INFORM Complete This link opens in a new window
Includes major trade journals and business news sources.
Tip
Check the box for "exclude wire feeds" to exclude press releases
Article database that indexes academic journals, trade publications, newspapers and magazines in business and economics. Full text is often available.
Use the FindIt links to locate full text of articles that are not included in the database.
Factiva This link opens in a new window
Contains 1000s of trade journals and international in scope. Searching is more complex than other databases, review the tips on the guide for best results.
Provides access to global news and business information, including local newspapers, same-day newswires, company reports, and media programs. Content is available in many different languages, including Chinese, French, German, Japanese and Russian. Stock data and indices are available for 5 years.