Research Guides: Case Competitions: Research

Introduction to Research

Conducting Research for your Case

When working on a case you must utilize resources to learn more about the company. The Purdue Libraries have fantastic resources that can help you with market analysis, financials, and much more. Check out the tabs below to explore the databases and reports that can help you with your case.

Resources to Utilize

S&P Capital IQ This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
In-depth financial/valuation data resource, including information on equities, credit ratings, transactions, and more. Explore pricing across markets including indices, commodities, and more. Use hundreds of data points to generate lists of companies, markets, or executives. Includes an Excel plug-in for data analysis, and the S&P Market Intelligence platform to find sector-specific financial data, research, and news.
Mergent Online
- This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
Company financial statements, ratios, and other quantitative data. Other information includes but is not limited to SEC filings, analyst reports, executive/board biographies and compensation details, and historical daily stock pricing back to 1925.
D&B Hoovers
- This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
Aggregates company profiles, business news, and industry reports.
PrivCo
- This link opens in a new window
A premier source for business and financial data on over 300,000 major, non-publicly traded corporations, including family owned, private equity owned, venture backed, and international unlisted companies.
Note: This resource requires you to create a user account.

IBISWorld Industry Reports
- This link opens in a new window
Data-driven reports on industries. Each report is approximately 30-40 pages in length, providing an authoritative overview of trends, competitive forces, statistics, top companies, and more.
Bizminer
- This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
Choose from two main categories. Industry Financial Analysis provides financial ratios and data for industry segments with sales class filters. Industry Market Profile offers demographics, competitors, market volume, and more for the entire US, states, counties, zip codes, cities, and customizable market radius.
Plunkett Research
- This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
Aggregates industry reports, company profiles, and job-seeker resources.

Mintel
- This link opens in a new window
Includes market research reports for Europe, the UK, and the US. Reports cover a variety of sectors including consumer goods, travel and tourism, financial industry, internet industry, retail, and food & drink. Reports discuss market drivers, market size & trends, market segmentation, supply structure, advertising and promotion, retail distribution, consumer characteristics, and market forecasts.
BCC Market Research
- This link opens in a new window
Market research reports: primarily STEM (science, technology, engineering, medicine) categories like advanced materials, chemicals, manufacturing, and pharmaceuticals.
Frost and Sullivan
- This link opens in a new window
Market research reports: a wide range of categories like aerospace and defense, automotive and transportation, consumer products, healthcare, energy and power systems, and measurement and instrumentation.
MarketResearch.com Academic
- This link opens in a new window
Market research reports: a wide range of categories like food and beverage, technology and media, heavy industry, life science, consumer goods, and service industries.
Passport
- This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
Aggregates industry reports, economic information, and consumer information by region and country with global coverage.

SimplyAnalytics
- This link opens in a new window
Web-based mapping, analytics and data visualization of demographic variables, psychographic variables, and business locations. Map any area down to the US census block level. Add map data data variables and create custom reports. Includes MRI-SimmonsLOCAL and EASI customer data.
Mintel
- This link opens in a new window
Includes market research reports for Europe, the UK, and the US. Reports cover a variety of sectors including consumer goods, travel and tourism, financial industry, internet industry, retail, and food & drink. Reports discuss market drivers, market size & trends, market segmentation, supply structure, advertising and promotion, retail distribution, consumer characteristics, and market forecasts.