Finding company information sources - tips, techniques and selected websites focusing on financial information, people data and general information - including research planning

1. © AWARE 2017 Tel: +44 20 8954 9121 • Fax: +44 20 8954 2102 • Web: www.marketing-intelligence.co.uk
Arthur Weiss
Email: a.weiss@aware.co.uk / Twitter: @awareci
www.marketing-intelligence.co.uk
16 October 2017

2. © AWARE 2017 Tel: +44 20 8954 9121 • Fax: +44 20 8954 2102 • Web: www.marketing-intelligence.co.uk

3. © AWARE 2017 Tel: +44 20 8954 9121 • Fax: +44 20 8954 2102 • Web: www.marketing-intelligence.co.uk
What are you looking for?
Company
Finances
Product
Information
People e.g.
Management,
innovators….
Investment
Opportunities
Partner
Opportunities
Recruitment
Opportunities
Technologies News History
3

4. © AWARE 2017 Tel: +44 20 8954 9121 • Fax: +44 20 8954 2102 • Web: www.marketing-intelligence.co.uk

5. © AWARE 2017 Tel: +44 20 8954 9121 • Fax: +44 20 8954 2102 • Web: www.marketing-intelligence.co.uk
Why are you looking for it?
Finances
Investment
KYC
Competition
Ability to
pay
Market
Share
Partner / JV
History
5

6. © AWARE 2017 Tel: +44 20 8954 9121 • Fax: +44 20 8954 2102 • Web: www.marketing-intelligence.co.uk
Why are you looking for it?
Product
Information
Prices
Where
to buy
How it
works
Patents
User
Reviews
News
History
6

7. © AWARE 2017 Tel: +44 20 8954 9121 • Fax: +44 20 8954 2102 • Web: www.marketing-intelligence.co.uk
What this means
• No single research approach
 Research approach depends on what is being looked
for and why
 Multiple sources – many not directly searchable via
Google
• Information availability will vary depending on
what is being looked for, location, time, etc.
• Often the best information won’t be free – and will
only be in proprietary databases
• Issues in verifying information – not all
information will be reliable
7

8. © AWARE 2017 Tel: +44 20 8954 9121 • Fax: +44 20 8954 2102 • Web: www.marketing-intelligence.co.uk
Examples: Looking for finances
8
What sort of companies need to
file accounts?
Are full accounts
published?
Is historical data
available?
What are the
sources?
Is the data
reliable?

9. © AWARE 2017 Tel: +44 20 8954 9121 • Fax: +44 20 8954 2102 • Web: www.marketing-intelligence.co.uk
Example: Company Financials
9
US Quoted
Companies
SEC.Gov
UK Companies
beta.companieshouse
.gov.uk
European Business
Registry ebr.org
Investigative
Dashboard.org
Yahoo Finance Google Finance Wolfram Alpha ADVFN.com

10. © AWARE 2017 Tel: +44 20 8954 9121 • Fax: +44 20 8954 2102 • Web: www.marketing-intelligence.co.uk
Some Examples: UK

11. © AWARE 2017 Tel: +44 20 8954 9121 • Fax: +44 20 8954 2102 • Web: www.marketing-intelligence.co.uk
Some Examples: UK

12. © AWARE 2017 Tel: +44 20 8954 9121 • Fax: +44 20 8954 2102 • Web: www.marketing-intelligence.co.uk
The Companies House “Webcheck” database
http://wck2.companieshouse.gov.uk/

13. © AWARE 2017 Tel: +44 20 8954 9121 • Fax: +44 20 8954 2102 • Web: www.marketing-intelligence.co.uk
Historical Records
Also try:
• Business archives council
www.businessarchivescouncil.org.uk
• Business history explorer
www.businesshistoryexplorer.co.uk/
• OpenCorporates
www.opencorporates.com

14. © AWARE 2017 Tel: +44 20 8954 9121 • Fax: +44 20 8954 2102 • Web: www.marketing-intelligence.co.uk
Also includes historical recordsOpenCorporates.com

15. © AWARE 2017 Tel: +44 20 8954 9121 • Fax: +44 20 8954 2102 • Web: www.marketing-intelligence.co.uk
Elsewhere in Europe
15
https://www.gov.uk/government/publication
s/overseas-registries/overseas-registries
https://www.commercial-
register.sg.ch/home/worldwide.html
http://www.rba.co.uk/sources/registers.htm

16. © AWARE 2017 Tel: +44 20 8954 9121 • Fax: +44 20 8954 2102 • Web: www.marketing-intelligence.co.uk
www.ebr.org
16

17. © AWARE 2017 Tel: +44 20 8954 9121 • Fax: +44 20 8954 2102 • Web: www.marketing-intelligence.co.uk
The USA
17
https://www.sec.gov/edgarsearchedgar/companysearch.html

18. © AWARE 2017 Tel: +44 20 8954 9121 • Fax: +44 20 8954 2102 • Web: www.marketing-intelligence.co.uk
Bureau van Dijk (bvdinfo.com)
18

19. © AWARE 2017 Tel: +44 20 8954 9121 • Fax: +44 20 8954 2102 • Web: www.marketing-intelligence.co.uk
InvestigativeDashboard.org

20. © AWARE 2017 Tel: +44 20 8954 9121 • Fax: +44 20 8954 2102 • Web: www.marketing-intelligence.co.uk
Investigative Dashboard
https://www.investigativedashboard.org/
20

21. © AWARE 2017 Tel: +44 20 8954 9121 • Fax: +44 20 8954 2102 • Web: www.marketing-intelligence.co.uk
World Stock Markets
http://www.world-stock-exchanges.net/
21

22. © AWARE 2017 Tel: +44 20 8954 9121 • Fax: +44 20 8954 2102 • Web: www.marketing-intelligence.co.uk
Where will it be held
(Who will know it?)
Can I obtain it legally and ethically
from this source & if so, how?
If not, are there other sources or ways of
obtaining the information?
After obtaining the information are
any checks needed to verify it?
What is the information’s relationship to
other information?

23. © AWARE 2017 Tel: +44 20 8954 9121 • Fax: +44 20 8954 2102 • Web: www.marketing-intelligence.co.uk
Information Availability
• Why is information available?
 Regulation
• Legal requirements
 Expectation
• Non-legal but “cultural” requirement to provide information
 “Marketing” (including propaganda, public information,
news and message propagation)
• Home market or foreign market audiences
 Community / Social needs
• Blogs, social media, discussion forums.... People want to
make their voice heard & give opinions!
 Serendipity
• Lucky accidents, carelessness, mistakes
23

24. © AWARE 2017 Tel: +44 20 8954 9121 • Fax: +44 20 8954 2102 • Web: www.marketing-intelligence.co.uk
Translations
• Free services e.g. Google Translate, Translate.com,
freetranslation.com, bing.com/translator
• Pay / Fee-based services e.g. OneHourTranslation.com
24

25. © AWARE 2017 Tel: +44 20 8954 9121 • Fax: +44 20 8954 2102 • Web: www.marketing-intelligence.co.uk
Looking for Company Employees
The obvious….
• Linkedin, Xing, Viadeo….
• Facebook (and other social media platforms e.g. Twitter, Instagram, etc.)
• People search engines e.g. Pipl.com, Yasni.com, Zoominfo.com
• Jigsaw.com (connect.data.com)
Easily forgotten
• Conference speakers (& attendees)
• Association memberships
• Job change reports
• Letters to the editor….
• Patent databases (Look for inventor names)
• Research papers / journal articles
• Legal reports
• Newspaper reports / Company press releases
• Company directories / registries e.g. Investigative Dashboard, Companies
House, Hoovers….
• Biographies of key management on corporate websites
26

26. © AWARE 2017 Tel: +44 20 8954 9121 • Fax: +44 20 8954 2102 • Web: www.marketing-intelligence.co.uk
Looking for Company Employees

27. © AWARE 2017 Tel: +44 20 8954 9121 • Fax: +44 20 8954 2102 • Web: www.marketing-intelligence.co.uk
Jigsaw.com (connect.data.com)
28

28. © AWARE 2017 Tel: +44 20 8954 9121 • Fax: +44 20 8954 2102 • Web: www.marketing-intelligence.co.uk
• Google
 “John * Smith” IBM vs. “John * Smith” * IBM
29
Looking for Company Employees

29. © AWARE 2017 Tel: +44 20 8954 9121 • Fax: +44 20 8954 2102 • Web: www.marketing-intelligence.co.uk
Searching LinkedIn
Different search options depending on subscription level (Free vs.
Premium)
• Firstname: - Finds members based on first name
• Lastname: - Finds members based on last name
• Title: - Finds members based on their current job title
• Company: - Finds members based on their current company (keyword
search)
• School: - Finds members based on schools attended (keyword search)
Boolean search works: AND, OR, NOT, “”, ()
Add in key terms such as “Head of”, “Director”, “VP” for key positions
Look also at company pages to get links to all employees PLUS
company news, opinions, etc.

30. © AWARE 2017 Tel: +44 20 8954 9121 • Fax: +44 20 8954 2102 • Web: www.marketing-intelligence.co.uk
Product Data
• Check the company web-site
 Archive.org for older versions….
• Review sites e.g. Epionions.com, Trustpilot, Feefo.com,
Angie’s List (USA), Amazon.com….
 Beware of biased / planted reviews: fakespot.com,
reviewmeta.com
• Search Twitter, Facebook, etc. for reviews & complaints
• Search for technical data, manuals, etc. (e.g.
manualsonline.com)
• Trade news & press releases
• Trade directories / Kompass, etc.
• Trademark databases
• Images & Video: YouTube, Vimeo, etc. Flickr, Pinterest….
31

31. © AWARE 2017 Tel: +44 20 8954 9121 • Fax: +44 20 8954 2102 • Web: www.marketing-intelligence.co.uk
Product Data
32

32. © AWARE 2017 Tel: +44 20 8954 9121 • Fax: +44 20 8954 2102 • Web: www.marketing-intelligence.co.uk
www.archive.org
33

33. © AWARE 2017 Tel: +44 20 8954 9121 • Fax: +44 20 8954 2102 • Web: www.marketing-intelligence.co.uk
34
www.archive.org

34. © AWARE 2017 Tel: +44 20 8954 9121 • Fax: +44 20 8954 2102 • Web: www.marketing-intelligence.co.uk
35
www.archive.org

35. © AWARE 2017 Tel: +44 20 8954 9121 • Fax: +44 20 8954 2102 • Web: www.marketing-intelligence.co.uk
www.archive.org

36. © AWARE 2017 Tel: +44 20 8954 9121 • Fax: +44 20 8954 2102 • Web: www.marketing-intelligence.co.uk
Company Website Analysis
Company Home
Page
Executive
Changes
Pricing &
Promotions
Events
(Online & Offline)
Investor Relations /
Finances
Office / Factory
Locations
Case Studies Customers
White Papers Press Releases

37. © AWARE 2017 Tel: +44 20 8954 9121 • Fax: +44 20 8954 2102 • Web: www.marketing-intelligence.co.uk
Company Website Analysis
• How many sites
 Product sites, corporate sites, sub-domains, regional /
local sites, social media pages
• What to look for
 Domain ownership
 Google ads
 Social media – Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter & others
 Multimedia pages – YouTube, Vimeo, Flickr, Pinterest…
 Google position
 Links to / from site
 Advertising….
 History – e.g. archive.org
38

38. © AWARE 2017 Tel: +44 20 8954 9121 • Fax: +44 20 8954 2102 • Web: www.marketing-intelligence.co.uk
What websites do they have?
Company
web-site
Blogs
Social
Media
pages
(Facebook,
Linkedin,
Twitter....)
Sister
company
pages
Brand
sites

39. © AWARE 2017 Tel: +44 20 8954 9121 • Fax: +44 20 8954 2102 • Web: www.marketing-intelligence.co.uk
Facebook Company Pages

40. © AWARE 2017 Tel: +44 20 8954 9121 • Fax: +44 20 8954 2102 • Web: www.marketing-intelligence.co.uk
Video – Adverts, News, Interviews, Leaks….

41. © AWARE 2017 Tel: +44 20 8954 9121 • Fax: +44 20 8954 2102 • Web: www.marketing-intelligence.co.uk
Don’t ignore others

42. © AWARE 2017 Tel: +44 20 8954 9121 • Fax: +44 20 8954 2102 • Web: www.marketing-intelligence.co.uk
Web Analysis Tools
• Domain Analysis:
 Domaintools.com, Robtex.com, Domainsigma.com, Pagesinventory.com,
searchdns.netcraft.com
• Site popularity / Search engine positioning, etc.
 Alexa.com ($), hitwise.com ($$$), buzzsumo.com, kpmrs.com
• Link monitoring
 Ahrefs.com, backlinkwatch.com, opensiteexplorer.com (moz.com),
monitorbacklinks.com, siteexplorer.info
• Online ad monitoring
 Spyfu.com, ispionage.com, buzzsumo.com
• Page tracking & Alerts
 Infominder, Watchthatpage, Versionista, Followthatpage…
 mention.com, google.com/alerts
• Anonymous searching
 Anonymizer.com, hola.org (chrome plug-in), torproject.org (browser)
43

43. © AWARE 2017 Tel: +44 20 8954 9121 • Fax: +44 20 8954 2102 • Web: www.marketing-intelligence.co.uk
Domaintools, Domainsigma, Netcraft, etc.
Whois.domaintools.com
Searchdns.netcraft.com

44. © AWARE 2017 Tel: +44 20 8954 9121 • Fax: +44 20 8954 2102 • Web: www.marketing-intelligence.co.uk
Tracking Web Changes
45

45. © AWARE 2017 Tel: +44 20 8954 9121 • Fax: +44 20 8954 2102 • Web: www.marketing-intelligence.co.uk
Search Engine Position

46. © AWARE 2017 Tel: +44 20 8954 9121 • Fax: +44 20 8954 2102 • Web: www.marketing-intelligence.co.uk
Advertising
• Check for adverts on YouTube, Vimeo, etc.
• Google ads, advertising expenditure, etc.

47. © AWARE 2017 Tel: +44 20 8954 9121 • Fax: +44 20 8954 2102 • Web: www.marketing-intelligence.co.uk
Other areas to check
• Patents & Trademarks
 E.g. https://worldwide.espacenet.com for patents – look for applicant
names
 Multiple trademark databases
e.g. http://euipo.europa.eu/eSearch/ for European Trademarks, USPTO
for US, etc.
• News
 Check company websites for press-releases
 News searches – Google News PLUS pay-to-use databases (Factiva,
Dialog, etc.)
• Recruitment databases – search what positions companies are
recruiting for e.g. careerjet, monster
• Reputation: glassdoor.com, thevault.com plus twitter, facebook
reviews, etc.
• Protest sites e.g. caat.org
• Blogs & presentations e.g. slideshare.net
• Q&A sites e.g. Quora
48

48. © AWARE 2017 Tel: +44 20 8954 9121 • Fax: +44 20 8954 2102 • Web: www.marketing-intelligence.co.uk
More official data: EU Tenders
http://ted.europa.eu/TED/main/HomePage.do

49. © AWARE 2017 Tel: +44 20 8954 9121 • Fax: +44 20 8954 2102 • Web: www.marketing-intelligence.co.uk
More official data: Anti-Trust
http://ec.europa.eu/competition/

50. © AWARE 2017 Tel: +44 20 8954 9121 • Fax: +44 20 8954 2102 • Web: www.marketing-intelligence.co.uk
Pay for information
51
Original image comes from "The Perfect Crime" comic from May 1951 (issue 12) - published by Cross
Publications Inc. (t/a True Cross Comics) See: http://www.comics.org/issue/234789/

51. © AWARE 2017 Tel: +44 20 8954 9121 • Fax: +44 20 8954 2102 • Web: www.marketing-intelligence.co.uk
Pay to use commercial databases
52
News Aggregators
Financial Information Providers
Market Research Suppliers
Legal Information Databases.
STM (Scientific, Technical, Medical) Databases, etc.
Specialist Databases e.g. industry, trade data, etc.

52. © AWARE 2017 Tel: +44 20 8954 9121 • Fax: +44 20 8954 2102 • Web: www.marketing-intelligence.co.uk
Summary
• Searching for company information involves multiple
search approaches
 No single method or type of source. These will vary depending on
the information requirements
• To find information, use a process:
1. Be clear about what you are looking for – and why the
information is needed
2. Ask why the information is likely to be available online
3. Assuming it should be available, where will it be held
4. Search for the “information container”
5. Search within the “information container” for the required
information
• Be willing to pay for information. Valuable information is unlikely to
be free.
6. If you cannot find the information go back to step 2
53

53. © AWARE 2017 Tel: +44 20 8954 9121 • Fax: +44 20 8954 2102 • Web: www.marketing-intelligence.co.uk
Arthur Weiss is the managing director of AWARE - a
UK based consultancy specialising in competitive
intelligence and marketing analysis.
A full version of all slides including screen prints and examples can be
downloaded from http:/marketing-intelligence.co.uk/websearch17
Contact Details:
Web Sites: www.marketing-intelligence.co.uk
E-mail: a.weiss@aware.co.uk
Twitter: @awareci
Facebook: www.facebook.com/AWAREmarketing
Telephone: +44 20 8954 9121
Fax: +44 20 8954 2102