A great deal of business research involves finding out about companies. This can be done by looking at their strategy, analysing their accounts and ratios, comparing them with other companies, looking at their share price and fundamental data and checking what the analysts are saying and predicting.

In addition to a large collection of printed annual reports, the library has access to eight databases of company information, ranging from real time share price movements to historical accounts data. Most offer charting, downloading (Excel) and data manipulation tools, as well as the static data. You can see a complete list of these databases and access them at Library > E-Resources > By subject , but here is a quick overview:

• Directory information (addresses, people): Amadeus, Sabi, Thomson One, Hoover’s
• Financial accounts: Amadeus, Sabi, Thomson One, Hoover’s
• Share prices and fundamental data: Thomson One, Datastream, Reuters
• Tools for peer comparison: Amadeus, Sabi, Thomson One
• Strategy, history, outlook:  Hoover’s, Factiva, Business Source Premier, Investext (brokers reports)