Supply Chain Management

1. Identify your industry—brainstorm keywords and consider synonyms that describe it.  Example: micro-brewery, craft beer, micro beer.  Some terms may be more widely used than others, depending on the database. Check a thesaurus to help identify additional terms.
    
2. ​​Industry codes.  These four- and six-digit numeric identifiers classify and describe business activities.  The United States employs two primary classification systems for this purpose and it is typical for companies to use both. Use simple keywords to search these online manuals.

​​Online industry code sources: 
​North American Industry Classification (NAICS)
Standard Industrial Classification (SIC)

• Where to find a company’s industry code? Company profiles include primary and secondary NAICS and SIC codes.  The primary code describes the main business activity.  Secondary codes describe activities that are engaged in to a lesser degree. Unless you are specifically interested in secondary business activities, search using the primary industry codes.
• When to use an industry code? (See databases)
  • Use industry codes to help identify organizations engaged in the same or similar business activities, particularly competitors.  (Atozdatabases)
  • Use industry codes, along with mapping, to identity competitors’ physical locations and proximity to one another (Atozdatabases)
  • Use industry codes to locate industry reports (IBISWorld)

3. ​​Locate industry reports, overviews and profiles.  Search the library’s databases using the keywords you identified earlier as well as the industry codes.

Library sources for industry reports:
IBISWorld
Encyclopedia of American Industries

4. Use the list of keywords you brainstormed to search for current news and articles on your Industry.
5. Check industry and trade association websites for free information about your industry.
6. Review market share data and other industry statistics (Business Insights).

• Remember, industry profiles may also be described as "industry reports" or "industry overviews"
• Review profiles from several publishers to gain a more complete understanding of your industry.  Older issues of most profiles are available, providing an unbroken cycle that might prove valuable to your analysis 
• You may search for industry profiles from a particular publisher by searching industry and "publisher name"
• For example, ABI/Inform Collection includes reports from First Research, Barnes Reports, and Plunkett Analytics, so your search might look like this:
  • hotels AND "barnes reports"
•  ABI/Inform Collection also includes a series entitled Just - (Just-food, Just-drinks, Just-auto).  A search for reports from that publisher might look like this:
  • beverages AND "just drinks"
• Business Source Ultimate includes reports from MarketLine and RKMA.  A search of that database might look like this:
  • hotels AND Marketline
• These two databases are also important sources for general news about an industry​