Finding Financial Information

Preparing the Financial Statements

Cost Drivers
Pricing
Gross Profit Margin
Sales and Marketing
Operational Expenses

Searching for financial information is very similar to doing market research. Secondary sources, though plentiful, will usually not have the specific information you’re looking for, if they have any useful information at all. People within similar businesses, industry suppliers, or analysts who study your industry are usually the fastest, best, and sometimes only sources of the data you need for your VOSG II. If you approach people as a college student studying the industry for a class, people will often supply a surprising quantity of detailed knowledge about their industry, especially if you are cordial and respectful of their time and effort. Also, it often helps to aim your questions more at the industry as a whole, as opposed to asking about the company specifically, since learning about the industry overall is your goal anyway, and the person on the other end will likely feel less defensive about supplying information.

Secondary sources, though, can provide you with the background knowledge and starting figures you might need to ask the right questions. Also, in the cases where people won’t share certain types of data, secondary research can also uncover the same information, though this process will require a great deal more sifting. Places to look for good secondary financial information (in order of relevance) are:

• Trade associations or trade magazines 

These sources will almost always have information such as salary surveys, commodity price listings, and company contact listings, and they exist for almost every industry and market.

• Dun & Bradstreet’s Industry Norms & Key Business Ratios

This source contains typical financial ratios for a wide range of industries, and is available in the Hunt Library Reference Section.

• Authors of relevant articles 

Especially if they are involved in your industry directly or as analysts, these people are potentially excellent sources of information, since they are usually quite knowledgeable and willing to share information with others.

• annual reports and SEC filings (if the company you are looking for is publicly traded in the US)

Available from the EDGAR database at www.sec.gov - to find annual reports, select "10-K" in the box on the first line (select the form...)

• online databases such as Lexis-Nexis, Proquest, and Infotrac

Available through the CMU Libraries page at www.library.cmu.edu

Articles about competitors, interviews with company executives, trade journal articles, and press releases sometimes have very useful data about your industry

• STAT-USA at www.stat-usa.gov

This site allows you to search through a wide range of reports issued by the USA federal government.

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