Industry Research  

1. Go to the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) web site. While you are looking for global/non-US information, you need to know a NAICS code number since that is how the information is organized in Business Source Complete.

2. Search for your industry by entering your keyword(s) into the 2007 NAICS Search box on the left side of the main NAICS web page.

3. Browse through the the industry descriptions returned. The 6 digit hyperlinked number is the NAICS code. You can get a description of that industry by clicking on the number. Write down the NAICS code that best matches your industry.

As an example, if you search for hot dogs you will find four entries that refer to three different NAICS codes. By clicking on 311611 you can read the description for the Animal (except poultry) Slaughtering industry and see listing of cross-references to related industries.

4. Go to Business Source Complete [Alternative business searching interface] and scroll down to the Limit your results section under the search boxes.

5. Select "Industry Overview" as the Document Type in the left column.

6. Enter your NAICS code into the box labeled NAICS/Industry Code in the right column.

7. Click the Search to view the industry research reports available. You may have a lot (or a few) results depending on the industry you choose. Browse through the list of industry reports to find the one relevant to your country or region. Country reports are not available for every industry. A global report is available for most industries, but may be a couple of years old.

For our Animal (except poultry) Slaughtering industry example, our search finds 252 reports. Browsing through the list of results we find both Meat Industry Profiles and Packaged Foods & Meats Industry reports. Below is a screen shot showing the Packaged Foods & Meats report for India. This industry report is from 2008 and available by clicking on the PDF Full Texlink.

Pro Tip: Do a new search with only NAICS code. You will get a lot of results that you can then limit by Subject: Thesaurus Terms and/or Geography on the left side of the results page. Limiting to the country Malaysia brings back 7 results, with one being a recent industry article and another a recent scholarly research article on the meat industry in the country.

1. Go to LexisNexis Academic.

2. Click on News on the left hand side and then click on Business & Industry.

3. Enter keyword(s) for you industry and country/region in different boxes. In the Select Sources box, check boxes for Business & Consumer Stories, Business Periodicals, and Industry News Publications.

4. Click on search to retrieve full-text articles. Our search for hot dogs and india finds 905 articles.

5. You can limit results by Source, Subject, or Industry on the left side of the results page if your search retrieved a lot of articles.  The Source limit is the best one to use.

Pro Tip! If you find an article with good information, scroll to the bottom and check boxes to the left of subject terms and geography to quickly narrow your results.