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Business Intelligence: Get the Goods on Your Customers, Partners, and Competitors

Written by: Mathew Georghiou

Article Overview: You just learned about a sales or business development opportunity. Or, perhaps, you encounter a new competitor. Now what? The first step is to gather information – and the Internet can be an effective and inexpensive source to do so. Here’s how.

Business Intelligence: Get the Goods on Your Customers, Partners, and Competitors

You just learned about a sales or business development opportunity. Or, perhaps, you encounter a new competitor. Now what? The first step is to gather information – and the Internet can be an effective and inexpensive source to do so. Here’s how:
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Business Intelligence Directories

If it’s a relatively large business, you can find it listed with business intelligence directories such as Hoovers.com and Business.com, which provide detailed company information, including revenue,
company executives, competitors, and more.
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Company Website

Visit the company website. Read about the company and its management. Review management bios
for current responsibilities and past accomplishments. Read the news section to see what’s been happening recently: big sales win; running out of money; lawsuit; lots of hype; or no news at all. And be sure to go back in history to see how the company has evolved, and discover any challenges and successes it has encountered.
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News Websites

If the company is public, visit a news source such as Reuters.com or CanadaNewsWire.com, or the public stock exchange website to review news and press releases. Public companies are required to report both good and bad news, but they will often quickly remove bad news from their own website – something they can’t do on other websites.
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Media Archives

The Way Back Machine at www.archive.org stores websites as they looked in the past. Other websites archive information from numerous sources. By searching and reviewing news articles written about a company – both present and past - you can gauge how the industry and media view a company, as opposed to press releases, which are written by the company.
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Search Engines and Newsgroups

Conduct a general search on the company and its executives on major search engines and newsgroups.
You may be surprised at what you will find!
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Government Agencies

Departments and organizations such as the Securities Commissions, Business Registration, Patent and Trademarks office, Superintendent of Bankruptcies, and others now offer free (or low cost) access to information on company directors, incorporation details, insider trading, and more.

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Article Tags: bad news, business development, business intelligence, canadanewswire, company executives, company search engines, competitor, development opportunity, hype, inexpensive source, major search engines, management bios, media archives, news source, news websites, public stock, reuters, stock exchange, way back machine, www archive



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