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Course & Subject Guides

Global Strategy & Competitive Advantage - Oakland Campus

Designed to assist students with their research for Prof. Madhavan's course. BUSSPP 1740.

Chinese Companies

Use the resources on this page to learn about companies in this industry. For international or foreign companies, the best bets are:

Finding Company Analyst Reports

There are many resources that contain company analyst reports. Investext provides the best reports, so use that database if you can.

Resources

Tutorials

Use the video tutorials to learn how to find analyst reports for specific companies. Use the arrowto view the videos full-screen.

SWOT and Five Forces Analysis Reports

The following databases are great places to find SWOT reports, which provide additional insight into a company.SWOT Analysis chart

SWOT : Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats

"...A framework for identifying the internal strengths (S) and weaknesses (W) of a firm, and the external opportunities (O) open to it and the threats (T) it faces, which can be used by corporate planners in formulating the firm's competitive strategy and marketing strategy in individual product markets and its overall business strategy." - Collins Dictionary of Business

Use the information found in SWOT reports to search for additional articles that might go into more depth.

Image by Xhienne, CC-BY.

Michael Porter claims that "the state of competition in an industry depends on five basic competitive forces" (1980, p.3). The five forces are: threat of new entry, threat of substitution, bargaining power of buyers, bargaining power of suppliers, and competitive rivarly.

*Porter, Michael E. 1980. Competitive Strategy: Techniques for Analyzing Industries and Competitors. The Free Press. New York.

While you will often need to conduct your own Five Forces Analysis, you can find some pre-made reports in the following databases.

You can sometimes find Five Force Analysis Reports in journal and magazine articles.

1. Type your industry in the first search box, and "five forces" in the second.