Subject and Course Guides: New Business Ventures: Competitors

Finding Competitor Information

In general, you will be looking for:

business description and industry classification

financial data

company history

company ownership

intellectual property

news

D&B Hoovers
Replaces both D&B Business Browser and Hoover’s Online. Good company and industry information. Includes public and private companies worldwide. Usually includes a SWOT Analysis.

Limited to 50 simultaneous users. May not be compatible with wireless devices.
Mergent Intellect
Designed to build and download lists of public and private companies.
Nexis Uni
Good source for national, international and local news. Includes Crain's Chicago Business.
PrivCo
Business and financial data on major, non-publicly traded corporations, including family owned, private equity owned, and venture backed companies. Users need to sign up for an account on campus using their UIC email address.

If you already have a PrivCo account go to privco.com and sign in.

Note: you can also create a PrivCo account by connecting through UIC's VPN service. To install, go to AnyConnect VPN and make sure you select the Library-Resources group.

ABI/INFORM Global
ABI/INFORM is an extensive business research database with full-text articles from business journals, business and trade magazines and newspapers.
Access World News Research Collection: 2023 Edition
Provides current and archived news content from more than 13,800 United States and international newspapers, news services, magazines, blogs, transcripts, and more. Date coverage varies with individual newspaper. See the Newspapers Research Guide [ link https://researchguides.uic.edu/newspapers/top ]
Chicago Tribune (1985-current)
This publication's detailed indexing helps users quickly find the news information they need.
Each issue is indexed thoroughly, so they have access to not only top news stories but also the information contained on the various sections of the paper.
Nexis Uni
Articles from national, international and local sources. Includes Crain's Chicago Business.
Wall Street Journal - Eastern edition (1984 - current)
(1984-present)
Published daily by Dow Jones Factiva Corp. with online full-text from 1984, and images, tables and graphs from August 9, 2006 to present.

Using NAIC codes, use these databases to map company locations:

SimplyAnalytics
Besides marketing data, you can create a table or map showing company locations.