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BA 497: Business Policy, Strategy, and Ethics (James)

This guide will help you with your research

Does the name refer to a company, subsidiary or brand?

Example: I want more information on DJO Global. I want to know if the company is publicly-traded. The company makes orthopedic devices.

  • Go to Search By Content Type and select Company Dossier
  • Type DJO Global into the Company Name box
  • Select DJO Global, Inc (DJO) from the list of companies
  • The profile indicates that DJO Global is publicly-traded subsidiary
  • View the description to confirm that the company produces orthopedic devices

Sometimes it's difficult to determine if the name you have refers to a brand or the company name. Also, the company might be a subsidiary of a larger corporation. In addition, many smaller companies are privately-held and you won't be able to locate balance sheets, income statements and cash flow statements.

You can determine if you are dealing with a brand or company and the legal status of the company by doing searches on Google, LexisNexis Academic and Reference USA.

Example: I have the name DonJoy and I want to know if this is a brand or a company name.

  • Search the term donjoy into Google and Search
  • You are taken to a page for DJO Global
  • Click the link for Corporate Info (wording will vary and some companies will have a section "About the Company" or "About Us"
  • On the corporate info page it explains that the company's name is DJO Global and that DonJoy is one of many brands sold by DJO Global

Example: I suspect the company Recofit is really small and I want to locate an estimate of their annual sales. You weren't able to locate any information in the LexisNexis database.

  • Type recofit into the Company Name box and click Search
  • Click the link for Recofit
  • Scroll down and click Industry Profile to see if they industry looks relevant
  • Click the link for Busines Demographics to obtain an estimate of the company's sales and number of employees
  • Click the link for Management Directory. You see that Susan Walton is an executive of the company. Since Ecofit's web page http://recofit.co/about-recofit/ mentions Suan Walton as the founder of the company, you can be confident that you have located the correct company in Reference USA