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Researching Companies: Resources & Tips: Local Company Sources.

Interests in companies are many and varied, ranging from history to financial to current activities & operations. This guide introduces sources of information about companies, their structure, current reporting on their activities and operations.

Suggested print resources focusing on local/regional companies.

State/Local Business Information (Print Resources):

D&B Regional Business Directory, Kansas City Area.  [REF] HG 4058 K3 D86

Produced by Dun & Bradstreet, this directory covers all of Kansas plus western Missouri and two Oklahoma counties.  Businesses are ranked by sales and number of employees.  Standard directory descriptions include:  address, line of business, sales, key personnel, etc..

Harris Directory of Kansas Business.  [REF] HF 5065 K2 H37

Basic contact information, type and size information is provided.  Entries arranged by city with additional product, SIC, and alphabetic indexes.  Statistical sections offers rankings and numbers of businesses.

Missouri Directory of Manufacturers. [CIRC] HF 5065 M57

Covers more than 9,200 firms in a directory listing format.  Statistical section offers several tables ranking all entries according to number of employees, SIC groups, and within counties.

 

Online Resources - State/Local Businesses

Kansas City Business Journal

Key resource covering business news for the KC metro area.  Also covered are job openings, commercial real estate listings, small business information, new business starts, legal filings & liens, people on the move, and the various topic/theme focused  'List of the Top 25...', covering various business, manufacturers, services, public institutions, non-profit agencies, and schools.  The Book of Lists is compiled, issued annually, and available online.

 

Sorkins Online.

Sorkins offers expanded metro area coverage of businesses, organizations, services and government in a directory-style format of key descriptive features.  Access by industry code (modified version of SIC classifications), company name, executive nameor county/zip code indexes. Provides names of key personnel contacts, address, kind of business activity, and an approximation of size by employee and sales range.  Selected coverages to:  St Louis, mid-Missouri, KC/Wichita, mid-Illinois, or Chicago.

 

ReferenceUSA

Directory style format, find information about consumer research, business entities, organizations, serices, public agencies, industries, and schools throughout the United States.  Conduct searches using multiple criteria including geography, key personnel, sales volume, and business type/size.  Coverage:  over 24 million buesiness and 262 million consumers.  Data files continuously updated.

 

Newsbank

Full text coverage of major, local/regional  newspapers in the metro area region, including the KC Star, Lawrence Journal-World, Topeka Capital Journal, and Wichita Eagle among the many offered titles.

 

Note:  The above are focused suggestions covering local/regional businesses.  You might try  searching your company using other, broader focused business databases covering business and trade periodical titles for relevant content.