Researching industry trends and outlook with NetAdvantage (Standard & Poor)

Olivia OlivaresJames W. Miller Library

You can find S&P Industry Surveys in NetAdvantage in two places on the main webpage: on the right, and above in the blue menu bar.

The option in the blue menu bar above will take you to a slightly more detailed search interface.

From here, you can search for reviews of over 50 major industries, or a couple of hundred sub-industries, by using the pull-down menus. Click on the down arrows to bring up a menu of industries or sub-industries.

Let’s say we’re interested in researching beer and brewers. Click the down arrow in the pulldown menu for industry surveys. One of the listed surveys is for alcoholic beverages and tobacco.

Standard & Poor’s Industry Surveys are written by expert industry analysts, who produce a new analysis for their assigned industry once a year. The analyst’s name and date of publication are at the top. Analyses for previous years can be found in the pulldown menu marked “Archived Surveys.”

The analyses are all formatted identically: they begin with an overview of the current industrial environment, and include sections on industry trends, descriptions of how the industry operates, and a list of industry references. You can read each of these by clicking on the links.

In this case, the current environment section states that 2009 was “dismal” for the beer industry, and that 2010 wasn’t much better.

Clicking on “Industry Trends” takes you to that section, where we read more about the beer industry’s poor growth prospects. Scroll down in the page to find the section on beer: “Beer weakness.”

The “Industry References” section will give you the titles of major trade journals, trade associations, and other useful sources of information, data and research for the industry you’re examining.

Questions?

Please contact:

Olivia Olivares, business specialistJames W. Miller Library

Saint Cloud State Universityoolivares@stcloudstate.edu

(320) 308-4822