This guide shows some of the resources at Healey Library that can be used
to find information about an industry.
It should be noted that many of the questions that arise when studying
an industry do not have simple answers that can be directly read out of
these resources. Rather, the job of the researcher is to use the
information and data from these sources to construct his or her own
answers.
Industry Analysis Topics
Exactly what industry are you studying? The standard way of classifying industries in the U.S. is the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS). This is a six-digit code used by government and business to classify economic activity (it replaces the older Standard Industrial Classification (SIC)). It is useful to know because many industry reports and statistics are organized by NAICS.
Once you know what industry you are studying, a good starting point is to look at some industry overviews, reports written by analysts giving the current situation, and sometimes the history and outlook for an industry. Here are a couple of places to find industry overviews:
The industry overviews will give you some facts and figures about the industry, but here are some additional places to look for further statistics about an industry.
To evaluate the current state and future prospects of an industry, you should also scan recent news and articles about the industry. Typically there are a huge number of these articles for an industry, so you need to develop the capacity to quickly scan headlines and dip deeper into just a few of the more relevant articles.
Here are some places to look for industry news:
You can dig deeper into an industry by looking at some of its major companies. Company profiles, company reports, company news all contain information relevant to the larger industry as well as the individual company.