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Business Research

Understanding Your Industry

Industry Analysis

  • What are the trends?
  • What are the challenges and obstacles?
  • What is the profitability?
  • Who are the key players?

Researching Your Industry
The resources below are a great place to start for a broad scope of an industry. Some of your ideas may cross over a few different industries, so be sure to look at all of the research. Goizueta Business Library has additional research sources for specific industries like high tech, sports, and entertainment. A business librarian can help you figure out which resources will be ideal for your project.

Understanding Your Market

Market Analysis:

  • Who are the customers? (demographics)
  • How do customers behave? (psychographics)
  • What is the demand for the product/service?
  • What is the pricing?

Consumer Data

Understanding Your Competitors

Competitive Analysis:

  • Who are the direct competitors?
  • What differentiates their products or services from yours?
  • What are their strengths and weaknesses?

Newspapers and Articles

Planning Your Operations and Marketing

Operations Research

Supplier Research

HR/Personnel/Taxes

Marketing & Advertising Research

Patents & Prototypes

Researching Investors & Funding

How to Search for Investors by Investment Activity in Pitchbook
Search for investors based on the type of deals they're involved in, and the types of industries they invest in. You'll look at the details of each investment and walk through the process of exporting the data into Excel.

Create a Saved Search
Creating, Saving, and Using Lists
Create and Edit Alerts
Collaborate on Lists, Searches and Market Maps

Free Web Funding Resources

Stay up-to-date

Online Tutorials

Overdrive eBooks

A curated list of entrepreneurship focused eBooks and audio books.

Magazines

Researching for Your Business Plan

The process of researching and writing your business plan helps you answer the BIG question: "Is my idea viable?There are many types of analysis that can help you answer that question: Market AnalysisIndustry Analysis, and Competitive Analysis.

What you learn from these analyses can help you develop your operations and marketing plans and inform your financial assumptions. Your business plan will help you stay on track with your vision, inform investors and partners about the profitability and risk of your business, and set you up for success in your entrepreneurial endeavors.

The sources you use may differ depending on your intended industry, market, regulatory environment, and many other factors, so it is important to exercise patience and persistence and use the resources and expertise available to guide your process. 

Examples of Business Plans

The following items are in physical format. These books can be found on the Business Reference shelves in the GBL Library.

Emory Entrepreneurship Programs and Local Resources