Research Guides: MARK 1115: Secondary Marketing Research: Industries / Competitors

Industries and Competitors

Most of the resources below take you to pre-packaged industry or market research reports published by reputable private research firms. These reports often contain a wealth of qualitative and quantitative analysis of industries, markets, companies, and consumer trends. They can be excellent sources for gaining a quick understanding of the industry/market for your type of product/service. They may also be able to answer questions around your specific industry, such as:

What are the trends and opportunities for this industry?
What is the outlook? Is the industry growing or declining?
How intense is the competition in this industry? Are there many small competitors, or is the industry dominated by several large companies?
How much share of the market do this industry’s leading companies hold?
How easy/hard is it for new entrants to start up?

Passport This link opens in a new window
A global market research database produced by Euromonitor International. It provides reports, statistics, analyses, and news on consumer goods industries worldwide. Industry reports and analyses include market performance, market size, company and brand shares, and profiles of leading companies and brands.

IBISWorld This link opens in a new window
A database containing industry reports covering a wide range of industries in Canada and the US. Each industry report is framed within Porter’s Five Forces analysis, including coverage of external drivers, industry outlook and operating conditions, market segmentation, competition and key success factors, etc.

Provincial Industry Reports are also available to provide local performance data and forecasts, and highlight regional demographics and economic indicators

Statista This link opens in a new window
Online portal for statistics, quantitative data, and related information on industry sectors. Statista collects and aggregates data from thousands of public and licensed sources. It also provides a variety of reports on industries, brands and countries, including regularly updated dossiers with top statistics on a specific industry as well as toplists with all top companies in a given industry or region.

MarketResearch.com Academic This link opens in a new window
Full-text access to detailed market research reports on various markets and demographics in North America, with some international coverage. Sectors covered include Service Industries, Consumer Goods, Food & Beverage, Heavy Industry, Public Sector, and Technology & Media.

ABI/INFORM This link opens in a new window
Similar to Business Source Complete (listed below), it features full-text industry reports (e.g., Fitch Solutions Country Industry Reports) and popular/trade magazine articles, which provide overviews of industries, updates on new developments and trends, and industry experts’ analysis.

Business Source Complete This link opens in a new window
It provides full-text access to industry reports and popular/trade magazine articles providing overviews of industries (e.g., industry size, competition, key players, etc.), updates on new developments and trends, and industry experts’ analysis.

Market Share Reporter This link opens in a new window
A compilation of market share reports from primary sources and periodical literature. It covers both international and North American market share statistics with over 3,600 entries, each with a descriptive title, data and market description, list of producers/products with their market shares.

Reference Canada (company directory)
A company directory, including small to medium-sized businesses across Canada, can be used to identify local competitors. Information provided includes company’s address, sales volume, number of employees, name of manager/owner, etc. Use the Advanced Search feature to search by industry, geography, and/or business size.
NOTE: The number of employees and sales figures may not be always correct. Use common sense and try to verify from other sources of information such as the company’s website.
Financial Performance Data (Government of Canada)
With data from Statistics Canada’s Small Business Profiles, it offers industry-specific income statement and balance sheet data for small and medium-sized businesses (with annual revenues ranges of $30,000 to $5 million and $5 million to $20 million). The website allows you to create custom reports and view financial data based on industry averages. You may also choose to view data by province.

Trade/Industry Associations
Trade or industry associations can be excellent sources for specific industry/market data. Use Google to find associations serving the industry of interest.