| page 3/last page 4. Websites That Cover Industries. The previous section identifies websites that are the primary public sources of easily accessible industrial sector (and company) financial data. From this point on, easily accessible financial data, not already obtained from one of the sites in the previous section, will be much harder to find on the Internet. This section identifies websites that will lead you to trade associations’ websites and to sites that “cover” industries. And, then, the final section, before the concluding section, will identify websites that provide “analysis” of industries and industrial sectors. Often, but not always, a fee is charge for this analysis. These trade associations and other sites that cover industries and industrial sectors likely will have a lot of operational and other types of performance information. These sites should be considered as potentially useful sites to obtain benchmarking information. Even some financial performance data, not found at sites in Section 3, may be available at sites identified in this section, especially at the trade associations’ sites. Trade associations often collect financial and operational data from their members for the purpose of providing benchmarking information. Unfortunately, my experience is that such data and information at trade associations’ sites is usually restricted to trade association members only. From the American Society of Association Executives website, www.asaecenter.org/Directories/AssociationSearch.cfm?navItemNumber=16581, trade association websites can quickly be identified and connected to. For example, assuming our Venture Industries’ management accountant does not know the trade associations related to the motor vehicle parts sector, searching on the term supplier at this site pulls up a link to the European Association of Automotive Suppliers. Searching the American Society of Association Executives’ site for trade associations using the category automobile/automotive pulls up links to the Motor & Equipment Manufacturers Association and the Original Equipment Supplier Association. A similar site to this Hoover’s site is the Wright Investor’s Service site, www.corporateinformation.com. Access to a lot of the information at this site requires registration (which is free). Like the Hoover’s site, this site has industrial sector pages with lots of links to sites that cover the sector. Links are also provided to individual profiles of companies within the sector. The Renesseler Polytechnic Institute’s Cole Library at the Hartford campus maintains this site, http://library.rpi.edu/update.do?artcenterkey=457, which has pages of links for more than 20 industry sectors. At the Automotive Industry page, links are to both paid subscription and free sites. Links are provided to trade associations, trade publications, and company sites. Rutgers University’s Library has a similar site at www.libraries.rutgers.edu/rul/rr_gateway/research_guides/busi/industry.shtml. The Rutgers site has many links to older 1990s Census Bureau data, presented in a variety of formats. The Harvard Business School’s Baker Library has at its site, www.library.hbs.edu/guides/index.html, industry guides. Sites linked to from these guides are similar to the sites linked to from the Renesseler and Rutgers webpages. A “mega” site containing dozens of links to websites related to industrial sectors is www.virtualpet.com/industry/mfg/mfg.htm, maintained by Polson Enterprises. Highlights of the Fuld & Company site are links to benchmarking information, such as the Best Manufacturing Practices (BMP) website maintained by the Navy Department, the Department of Commerce, and the University of Maryland. The BMP site has best practices reports from several companies on many processes, including such practices as inventory control. Other highlights include links to sites devoted to knowledge management and industrial sector pages of links. The Polson Enterprises site has links to websites that cover industries. 5. Websites That Provide Analysis On Industries. Websites in this category offer finished analytical reports on industrial sectors. A lot of companies provide such reports on the Internet for a fee. Some of these company sites are identified in this section. As for the websites in Section 4 that cover industries, sites identified in this section may provide useful benchmarking information. The Missouri Business Development Network site, www.missouribusiness.net/iag/index.asp, provides analytical reports for about 25 industries. Most of the industries consist of smaller, private companies, e.g. collision repairs, computer repairs, and manufacturing job shops. These reports provide market, trend, and issue information. Although the reports feature Missouri statistics, much information in the reports applies to many business locations. A site maintained by Ben Johnson Associates, Inc. at www.utilityregulation.com/sections/essays/ehome.htm provides analytical articles on various aspects of the regulated telecom and energy sectors. Articles of interest to management accountants are included. Valuation Resources.com, Inc. maintains a site at www.valuationresources.com/IndustryReport.htm, from which you can access websites that provide analytical reports for many SIC categories. For example, for the SIC category 3714, Motor Vehicles Parts and Accessories Manufactures (the category that our management accountant’s Venture Industries is in), about a dozens, or so, links are provided to companies that provided analytical reports on the motor vehicles parts sector. Unfortunately, almost all, if not all, of these reports require a fee to gain access to them. One unique set of links lead to compensation and salary survey information. 6. Conclusions. We have now in this article, “Finding Industry Sector Information”, and the article, “Finding Company Information”, identified many Internet sites that provide very relevant information of interest to management accountants on both companies and companies’ sectors. For example, using sites identified in these two articles and available from the Management Accounting Information Center’s front page (e.g. the front page topics Financial results, SEC reporting, and other data on companies and Industry sector trends, data, and statistics), we are able to obtain considerable financial and other performance information on the motor vehicle parts manufacturer Venture Industries, financial performance information on the SIC sector that Venture Industries belongs to, and individual company information (that can be aggregated into sector information) for the major competitors of Venture Industries. Comparing one’s own company financial and other performance metrics against similar organizations is an important component of good decision making within a company. Information found on the Internet can help management accountants make an important contribution to this good decision-making. End Please click here if you would like to comment on this article or suggest a topic for an article. Please click here to return to the Management Accounting Information Center’s homepage. |
| Finding Industry Sector Information |