Creating Your Own Dossier

Database technique

Private firms

Doing research on private firms is different from researching public firms, and carries the particular challenge of discovering the information. Private firms, like private individuals, are not required to make their private information public. This right to privacy is problematic if you want to do research on a private firm. There are, however, ways at getting at this private information.
Private firms operate much like seals out in the wilderness. Even with their strong lung capacity, seals must come up periodically to breathe through air holes in the ice sheet above them. When this happens, the seals are prone to attack. Private firms also do things that make them vulnerable to “attack”--from other firms. Although private firms have an interest in keeping their information secret, and have the legal protections to do so, there are times when they have to let their guard down:  borrowing money, advertising, and talking to the media. Whenever a company engages in any of theses three activities, it potentially becomes exposed to espionage from other firms.

Competitive advantage

Private firms do not sell shares of stock: the public cannot invest in them. The main reason for researching a private firm is therefore not to figure out whether it’s a good investment but to compete against it. When one company gets information on another, that company gains a competitive advantage. This advantage might be used offensively, but also defensively, i.e. a competitive advantage may be used to protect a firm.

Vulnerabilities

First, in borrowing, companies can lose a bit of privacy. For example, Dun and Bradstreet lends money to other firms. As a condition of the loan, Dun and Bradstreet acquires the ability to sell information to third parties. If you were a competing firm, you may be able to go to Dun and Bradstreet to obtain information on a competitor.

Second, companies need to advertise, as their products are usually sold on an open market. Advertising, however, is another way for competitors to gain knowledge about the workings of a company. Finding out where, and correspondingly to whom, a company is advertising can reveal how much money the company is making.

Third, there is the media. As with advertising, companies need to put themselves “out there.” There are times when companies need to talk to reporters, for example, when there is trouble. But a more frequent form of media use is trade publications such as Aviation Weekly. Competitors can use these publications to gain information and build more complete pictures of their competition.

Websites

A website is a good way for a company to get its products into the market. Companies also provide media kits that tell prospective customers about themselves. Though websites and media kits provide outreach, they also can be used against a company. For example, a competitor could go on a company’s website and order a media kit, and find out what products the company is selling and to whom they’re selling them. The competitor would then take advantage of that knowledge and make changes in her own company.

Trade publications to media kits

Media kits can be found simply by searching the web, but there are more dependable ways. One sure way to find companies in the industry you’re researching is to find that industry’s trade publication. Any one industry can have many trade publications, and none may be authoritative. That shouldn’t be an issue, as the thing important about trade publications is that they contain lists of companies, industry advertising, and media kits.

Healey Library

Library resources can help you in locating trade publications. For example, the Encyclopedia of Associations is available in hard copy in the Healey Library’s reference section. In it, I found only a single, but Boston-based, entry for health clubs: the International Health, Racquet and Sportsclub Association (IHRSA). The entry contains contact information, including a website. Also listed in the entry is their publication, Club Business International, along with a brief description. Going through the Library’s hardcover Encyclopedia of Associations was tedious and not that productive—only one result was obtained.

Ulrich's on Healey Library website

A far more useful resource was Ulrich’s Periodicals Dictionary, an online database that can be search through the Library’s website. In fact, simply by typing “fitness” into the advanced search field I was able to obtain 211 results. And that includes the entry for IHRSA I found in the Encyclopedia of Associations.

To get to Ulrich’s Periodicals Dictionary, go to the Healey Library’s website and select “Databases and Indexes” in the left-hand column. Next, select the letter “U” under “Browse by first letter,” and then “Ulrich’s Periodicals Dictionary.”  Using their database is simple. I used the advanced-search-field in my example, but didn’t delimit the results. You could, for example, search for only a specific geographic location or year or language.

Putting together a dossier of your very own

Finding information on private companies is not at all as easy as finding information on public companies, which have dossiers. Remember: a company dossier is essentially a biography. It will contain a summary of the company, often with legally required statements and disclosures. But private companies likely don’t have such summaries, so you can’t simply go on-line and find their dossier.  You’ll have to create your own. To create your own company dossier, it helps to remember that private companies have to come up for air periodically. They have to borrow, advertise and use the media. Competitors can take advantage of those publically available resources. What the Healey Library can help you with most is getting access to trade publications, and therefore media kits—one part of the puzzle of a private firm’s dossier.