Business Blog

I just talked to a student who was researching aluminum manufacturing.  Her group is charged with making recommendations on how a Vietnamese company can increase production output and efficiencies.  As a non-engineer, we found a couple of resources to be pretty useful.

How Aluminum is Made gives a brief and easy-to-read explanation of the aluminum manufacturing process.  I recommend you read this before the next two.

McGraw-Hill Encyclopedia of Science and Technology offers a good overview of aluminum manufacturing.  I like the fact that the book has illustrations of plant layouts and goes pretty deep into the process.  It’s a little harder to read than the How Stuff is Made article.

Metal Producing and Processing is a trade publication “devoted to metal producing; covers iron, steel, aluminum, brass, copper & everything else in a foundry”.  We have full-text access to this via Business Source Complete.

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I just got off an IM question with a student who was researching the construction equipment rental market.  She had found market research reports about the consumer sector in Mintel Reports, and also industry reports from IbisWorld.  However, she was still looking for business-to-business information.  Through a rather convoluted way of searching Business Source Complete for trade publications about construction equipment, I happened across a trade publication called “Construction Equipment” (what are the odds?).  After looking through a few articles, I found one that referenced “Construction Equipment’s 2009 Annual Report and Forecast.” The report was not available in Business Source Complete, but as of today, it is available for free at the publication’s website.  Here’s the link:

Construction Equipment’s 2009 Annual Report & Forecast – 01/01/2009 – Construction Equipment.

The report covers an Economic Outlook , the commercial or Contractor market, Nonconstruction market, Government, Rental, and Distributors.   It seems like a really good report, and the student seemed to be all smiles (or as smiley as you can get over IM) about the report.

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Today I am meeting with a student who is researching the automobile industry in Brazil.  For U.S. industries, I would typically go to IbisWorld, Market Insight (S&P Industry Surveys) or Plunkett Research Online.  Those resources have wonderful write-ups of American Industries.  For international industries, shopping for information is not so easy.  You often have to piece together information from a variety of resources.  Here’s a few resources that I am recommending to the student, and they’re definitely worth checking out if you’re researching an international industry.

1.  Economic Background Information

In order to understand how an industry is doing, it may help to frame it in the context of how the overall economy is performing in the particular country.  For that purpose, I recommend the Economist Intelligence Unit.  Ohio University Libraries has a subscription to a number of reports in the EIU on Brazil.  The EIU also discuses topics such as trade restrictions, tariffs, importing, exporting, and more.

2.  Industry Profiles in Business Source Complete

Business Source Complete is always a go-to database for almost any business topic.  I did a search for Brazil and automobiles and got  1226 articles. By clicking on the “Industry Profiles Link” on the left side of the database, I limited the results to 52.   Within the list of results I found the following:

Brazil: Automotive report. (2009, February). Automotive Industry Report: Brazil, Retrieved September 22, 2009, from Business Source Complete database.

Abstract: The article provides information on the automotive industry in Brazil. It states that the industry is responsible for 18% of industrial gross domestic product (GDP) and employs more than 100,000 people in around 50 factories. It reveals that more than 90% of vehicles sold in the country’s market are domestically produced. Moreover, it is noted that the industry benefits from targeted tariff protection, tax concessions, and preferential terms for the financing of car purchases.

That’s just one article.  There should be a lot more like that one in the list of results.

3.  Mergent Online Industry Reports

Mergent Online’s Industry Reports has a report on the Automotive industry for the Latin American region.  Brazil is covered in the report, as are other countries such as Argentina, Colombia, etc.  This report could be particularly useful in looking at Brazil as well as its neighbors.

4.  StatUSA

The Globus & NTDB section of STATUSA provides some Market Research Reports (The Brazilian Automotive Industries Breaking Records [05/02/2008]) and Country Commercial Guides (Brazil Country Commercial Guide 2009 (Brazil) FY2009 [04/24/2009] ).  Both reports could be very helpful in analyzing Brazil’s automobile industry and understanding commerce in Brazil.

5. Factiva

Factiva will have some good articles on the industry.  On the search page, look for automobiles in the Industry Box, and put Brazil in the region. Don’t put anything else in the keyword search box. You’ll retrieve about 1,000 articles in the last 3 months. Refine with keywords (trends, forecasts, sales, revenues, outlook, etc) in the keyword search box if you’d like to get fewer articles.

6.  Ward’s Automotive Yearbook

Ward’s Automotive Yearbook is the definitive source for automobile production statistics.  Do you need to know how many vehicles were produced by line by month in 2008? This books has that information.  Also includes Brazil Vehicle Exports by Line by Month, as well as Vehicle Sales by Line by Month.  If you’re researching the industry, definitely take a look at Ward’s.

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Nielsen Wire has just posted a report for Consumer Packaged Goods Trends For The Next Decade.

Demographic and economic shifts over the next ten years will dramatically reshape the growth of consumer packaged goods (CPG), according to new research from Nielsen which was presented today at the Consumer 360 conference in Orlando.

In just ten years time, the face of America will change: fewer households will have children, the population will age and lower-income consumers will expand. Additionally, the majority of new families will be multi-cultural in less than two decades.

The PDF full report is available here.

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Deloitte has released a 2009 Industry Outlook, titled  Challenging times, emerging opportunities.

This 2009 industry outlook features Deloitte’s insights, analyses and projections for the following industry sectors:

• Aerospace and Defense
• Automotive
• Banking & Securities
• Consumer Products
• Energy & Resources
• Health Sciences
• Media & Entertainment
• Process & Industrial Products
• Real Estate
• Retail
• Technology
• Telecom
• Tourism, Hospitality & Leisure
• U.S. Federal and State Government

Link via Hill Library Blog

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