I am looking for a place to purchase industry research. Specifically,
lists of private companies with $20-200 million in sales that are not
owned by financial buyers such as private equity funds. I am looking
for the following data:
The name of the company
Annual Sales
The name of the head executive or owner of the company
The title of the head executive (CEO, Chairman, President, etc.)
The executives email address, if available
Website
Mailing Address
Phone number
Fax number
I would like to be able to specify an industry, and a specific type of
company (manufacturer, distributor, service provider, etc.) and get a
list of private companies in the space.
I am looking for sources of research OTHER THAN D&B, as I am already
aware of their records. I am also looking for more accurate research.
I would like to find around 5-10 sources for this kind of research,
and I will be inclined to tip if more are found. |
Clarification of Question by
jared5000-ga
on
04 Jan 2006 14:01 PST
Cindy,
Thank you for the information, I will have to look into some of it.
However, I am very familiar with sources like Lexis Nexis and Hoovers,
but since they derive data such as revenue estimates from D&B, I kind
of think of them as one and the same. When I say that D&B is not very
accurate, I am mostly referring to revenue and head executive data,
which is almost always outdated or just flat wrong. I have seen the
Forbes list, and you are right, the companies are bigger than I am
looking for--this is the case with most large national publications.
Also, the information that I am looking for is more specific than I
have seen available in the sources you listed. When I posted the
question, I thought I might get more sources for custom, targeted
research and companies that provide this sort of service. While it
would be great to find large pre-made lists, it seems that the task of
keeping them updated is greater than anyone has attempted to
accomplish as of yet.
|
Request for Question Clarification by
pafalafa-ga
on
04 Jan 2006 14:02 PST
jared5000-ga,
Your question asks for quite a lot out of the databases provided, and
I'm not sure all of them can be met, even by D&B. In particular:
-- companies "that are not owned by financial buyers such as private equity funds".
I see no way that D&B (or any other database) could distinguish
private companies based on the type of individuals/groups that own the
company.
--specify an industry, and a specific type of company (manufacturer,
distributor, service provider...
Again, I'm not aware that D&B has the capacity for BOTH these
parameters, nor do other databases that I know of.
--I am also looking for more accurate research [than D&B].
There are certainly competitors to D&B. But I see no way of
evaluating whether or not they are more accurate than D&B.
--I would like to find around 5-10 sources...
D&B certainly has competitors, but I doubt that there are as many as
ten with the full spectrum of capabilities that D&B has (and a pretty
full spectrum is needed to meet your complex set of requirements!).
Another way of perhaps asking your question might be: Who are the
major competitors to D&B in terms of providing, for a fee, information
on companies in select industry sectors?
This question I can probably answer. Your original question, though,
seems far less approachable.
Let me know your thoughts on this.
pafalafa-ga
|
Clarification of Question by
jared5000-ga
on
04 Jan 2006 16:09 PST
--"I'm not sure all of them can be met, even by D&B."
You could say "especially by D&B." I am very familiar with D&B's
database and its inability to satisfy my requirements, which is why I
excluded it as an option in my original post.
--"I see no way that D&B (or any other database) could distinguish
private companies based on the type of individuals/groups that own the
company."
One example would be CapitalIQ which lists outside investors and
allows you to screen for companies that are independent and never
"sponsor-backed." However, CapitalIQ rarely has revenue and employee
figures for private companies. And information on the head executive
isn't always available either.
--specify an industry, and a specific type of company (manufacturer,
distributor, service provider...
"Again, I'm not aware that D&B has the capacity for BOTH these
parameters, nor do other databases that I know of."
Actually D&B does have the ability to search for specific industries
by SIC codes. Other databases also have this distinction, I just
wanted to make sure to let you know that I require this as well.
--D&B certainly has competitors, but I doubt that there are as many as
ten with the full spectrum of capabilities that D&B has (and a pretty
full spectrum is needed to meet your complex set of requirements!).
For this reason, direct competitors of D&B are probably not the best
answer. D&B is fine for it's capabilities, but since I'm looking for
a bit more targeted and current information, another online database
is going to have a hard time fulfilling my requirements. As one of
the largest and full featured of its kind, I mentioned D&B to exclude
it and others like it. I am very aware of D&B, LexisNexis, Gales,
Capital IQ, Goliath, Yahoo Finance, Forbes lists, Business Journals
Top 50 and Top 100 lists, and so on. I am trying to see if there is
something different out there where more personal attention is given
to the research, something that wouldn't be practical for D&B's large
lists, but something that one could pay for professional research of
specific sets of data. I hope this helps clarify. Thanks.
|
Request for Question Clarification by
pafalafa-ga
on
05 Jan 2006 07:41 PST
jared5000-ga,
Here are some of the information sources that you might want to consider:
==========
http://www.alacrastore.com
Alacra
The Premium Business Information Source
--click Advanced Search
--click on Private
--leave Company Name blank
--select an industry segment
--pick the country or countries of interest
You'll get a list of private companies that match criteria, with the
ability to click on each company name for more info.
==========
This is probably your best alternative to D&B, in terms of the scope
of their resources, and the flexibility of the search options:
http://www.bvdep.com/
Bureau van Dijk
"Our range of company information products combines high quality data
with innovative software for both quick and complex queries..."
It takes a while to become familiar with their services, though. You
might want to start by playing around with their free trial service
at:
http://suite.bvdep.com/cgi/template.dll?product=3&user=anonymous
==========
http://www.1jump.com/subscribe.html
1Jump.
The Ultimate Company Research & Business Information Tool
A fairly new service, and one that I've yet to get fully familiar with
myself...but it seems worth a look.
==========
http://www.mergentonline.com/
Mergent Online
This a clunky, but pretty powerful, service that can generate lists of
private companies for given sectors and given sizes, and return a lot
of information for each company listed. Many public libraries have
access to Mergent Online.
==========
http://www.societe-bilan.com/index.html
Société-bilan
A French company that specializes in proving D&B-like
information...may be worth exploring, though I'm not terribly familiar
with it myself.
==========
Let me know if these look useful to you at all, and what other
information you'd like to have to make for a complete answer to your
question.
Also, if you have a specific query in mind (e.g. information on all
private chemical companies in the US, with sales in the range you
specified), you might want to post that as a question here at Google
Answers. Depending on what, specifically, you're after, we may be
able to assist you.
Cheers,
paf
|
Clarification of Question by
jared5000-ga
on
05 Jan 2006 11:55 PST
alacrastore.com and bvdep.com get their company data from D&B, so I
already have access to that through a subscribtion with hoovers and
Lexis Nexis. Mergent Online is a "service covering 10,000 public
companies and their SEC filings" per their website, so it would not
meet my need for private company data. The website for Société-bilan
is in French, so I don't really have a way to utilize that service,
but since I'm only really looking at domestic companies in the United
States, it probably wouldn't matter.
I haven't heard of 1Jump before and I can't tell where they get their
information on their website, although they do mention that they
purchase it from a third party. However, the bigger issue with 1Jump
would be the fact that a large portion of their database is public
companies and foreign companies.
I thought there might be some companies that provide customized
research. I don't think it should cost more than $3-4 for each
researched company. If I could find some companies like that, the
issue would then become whether or not I could work with them to make
sure they didn't research companies that I already know and avoid
duplicates.
|
Request for Question Clarification by
pafalafa-ga
on
05 Jan 2006 18:00 PST
Hello again,
Just to clarify, Mergent definitely includes information on private
companies, even though their main page stresses access to
public-company information:
http://www.mergentonline.com/Help/SearchResults.htm
...If you included a search of Private companies in a Basic Search, or
selected the Private Company Universe item in an Advanced Search, then
a second table showing those companies satisfying the criteria will be
displayed.
As for your question about customized research, this is really hard to
answer without a specific expample of the type of research you're
after. If you can give us a concrete example, perhaps we can find you
a service provider.
Thanks,
paf
|
Hello,
Finding accessible information about private companies is often
discussed as a problem for intelligence analysts. Explanation about
why D & B may not be as accurate as you want it to be? I just got a
call from Dun & Bradstreet for my systems integration business which
has had several reports bought in the past 60 days. The salesperson
told me that they were unsatisfied with the results because there
wasn't very much there, so I should invest $798 per year in their
premium listing service. If I get that, I can write my own background
material and present the business in the best possible light and they
will collect my company's financial and business information
information.
Other sources:
http://www.onesource.com/
http://gale.ecnext.com/
You can get the largest private companies, at least as of 2002, from
www.Forbes.com but they all make more than $1 billion per year.
Ward's Business Directory of U.S. Private and Public Companies
Published by Thomson Gale
Ward's now lists more than 114,500 companies, 90% of which are
private. Volumes 1, 2 and 3 provide current company information in a
single A-Z arrangement. Volume 4 is a geographic company listing,
offering at-a-glance evaluations of industry activity through rankings
and analysis. Consult Volume 5 for national rankings by sales within
SIC codes at the 4-digit level; Volume 8 presents these rankings by
NAICS codes. Volumes 6 and 7 rank companies in each state by sales
within 4-digit SIC codes and provide brief evaluations of industry
activity of leading companies for each state.
Whether it be for contacting a company or calculating its marketshare,
the Ward's series is an invaluable tool for librarians, executives,
students, analysts, marketers and all other professionals who require
updated company and industry profiles. Your researchers will use
Ward's to:
Identify market participants and study market share
Locate potential clients and create targeted mailing lists
Determine parent/subsidiary relationships
Analyze market position and find specific data on targeted companies
"This one is invaluable...Volume 5 or Volume 8 is highly recommended
as a source of information about competitive companies."
--Booklist (November 2004)
Business & Company Resource Center (Gale) (1980 - present)
Comprehensive periodical and reference resource for business,
management and investment topics, with Newsletters ASAP and
Predicast?s PROMT databases
? Articles from academic and general business, industry & management
periodicals, newsletters, newspapers and newswires (4000+ indexed
titles; 2900+ full-text)
? Investment and broker research reports
? Company & association directory listings from a number of sources
? Additional content from reference sources covering industries,
company histories, associations, brands, market share & more. Content
from latest editions of:
American Wholesalers & Distributors Directory
Brands & Their Companies
Business Rankings Annual, 2000 edn+
Consultants & Consulting Organizations Directory
Encyclopedia of American Industries
Encyclopedia of Associations: National
Encyclopedia of Associations: Reg, State, Local
Encyclopedia of Associations: International
Encyclopedia of Emerging Industries
Encyclopedia of Global Industries Graham & Whiteside Major Company Series
International Directory of Company Histories
Market Share Reporter
Notable Corporate Chronologies
Publishers Directory
Telecommunications Directory
Ward's Business Directory:
US Private & Public Companies
Private & Public Companies- Canada & Mexico
World Market Share Reporter
Learn more - http://www.gale.com/BusinessRC/
General BusinessFile ASAP (Gale-InfoTrac) (1980 - present)
Comprehensive periodical resource for business, management and investment topics
? Articles from academic and general business, industry & management
periodicals, newspapers and newswires (3300+ indexed titles; 2600+
full-text)
? Investment and broker research reports
? Company directory listings from Ward?s Business Directory (US, Canada & Mexico)
? InfoTrac interface
NOTE: DISCUS will retain General BusinessFile ASAP through June 2005 or longer.
http://www.lexisnexis.com/ lets you specify and buy your own research
from them ala carte (warm up the credit cards)
If you are looking for information geographically or by industry, it
becomes much more accessible.
http://profitsjournal.com/privatestories.asp
A potential solution is to gain privileges at a research university
that subscribes to the sources you need or you can hire a competitive
intelligence specialist who has these resources and can run them for
you or you can commission a private report.
Hoovers.com has a list of private companies, but it is owned by Dun &
Bradstreet as is the Million Dollar Directory at
http://mddi.dnb.com/mddi/
I used to subscribe to several of the big databases, but my job has
changed and I no long have to opportunity to play with the deep data.
Good luck,
Cindy |
