Operations Management — Company & Industry Articles

STEP #4

Turn to Factiva and ABI Inform, two excellent and different business article databases, to locate company and industry operational practices and strategic challenges.

Information about Companies

Look to articles as an efficient way to glean company intelligence such as: what management is saying about the company, their position in the marketplace, and their performance, strategies, challenges and risks.

When searching articles for operational-level information, the following keywords are frequently used:

Trend, outlook, future, risk, strateg*
Operation*, performance, measure*, supply chain, inventor*, logistic*, purchas*, shared service*
- * truncates a word. Strateg* will retrieve strategy, strategies, strategic, etc.
- ? truncates one letter of a word (trend or trends)

Factiva

A business database containing full text articles from over 9000 sources including national and international newspapers, business magazines and trade journals.

The following search strategies present you with options for approaching a company search:

QUESTION: How can I locate an article which discusses the outlook for a specific company?

On the opening Search Page, click on the "+" next to Company field - type your company name and from the generated list, click on the name once to enter it into the company box (turns pink)
Free Text Search Box: type trend? or outlook or future or risk? or challenge? or strateg*
Date: pull down box and select appropriate date range
Under More Search Options, Search for free-text terms in: use drop down box and select HEADLINE AND LEAD PARAGRAPH

QUESTION: How can I locate interviews with a company's CEO?

Free Text Search Box: home depot near25 ceo near25 (interview or profile)
DATE: pull down box and select appropriate date range
Under More Search Options, Search for free-text terms in:pull down box and select FULL ARTICLE (default)
Retrieve your results and then SORT BY: pull down box and select RELEVANCE

QUESTION: How can I find articles on Home Depot from local Atlanta newspapers?

Free Text Search Box: hlp=home depot and sn=(atlanta journal or atlanta business chronicle)
- hlp means headline or lead paragraph and sn means source
SELECT DATE: pull down box and select appropriate date range
SEARCH FOR FREE-TEXT TERMS IN: FULL ARTICLE (default)

ABI Inform

A database containing full text articles from business, management, and industry journals covering management topics such as: operations, HR, leadership, and other related issues.

The following search strategies present you with options for approaching a company search:

QUESTION: How do I locate substantive discussions about a company's successful practices?

Select the Advanced Search Tab
Type case studies and from drop down box select Subject
Type Home Depot (for example) and from drop down box select Company/Org
DATE RANGE: from drop down box select appropriate date range

QUESTION: How can I locate articles which discuss purchasing operations in healthcare?

Select the Advanced Search Tab
Type Purchasing or Inventory Management and from drop down box select Subject
In the second box, type Healthcare and from drop down box select DOCUMENT TEXT
DATE RANGE: from drop down box select appropriate date range

Note the indexing in ABI/Inform. Once you have an article that is on target, click Suggested Topics to review similar articles or Browse Suggested Publications that focus on your industry or topic.

For targeted searches, select the Topics tab and enter your topic to locate subject terms used by ABI/Inform.

Knowledge@Emory

An online resource that offers the latest business insights, information and research from a variety of sources. These include analysis of current business trends, interviews with industry leaders and Emory faculty, articles based on the most recent business research, book reviews, conference and seminar reports, links to other web sites.
First time users must register (it's free!)
Check the Operations Management section or do a search for your company or topic of interest
The May 2006 edition features UPS Supply Chain Solutions Consulting Services

Information about Industries

Look to sources of industry information to answers questions such as:

What operational issues affect firms in my company's industry?
What current or hot topics are being discussed?
What areas of improvement are being implemented in the industry?

Market research reports and benchmarking studies can be expensive and access to their full text may not always be an option, both at Emory and the workplace. The strategic use of article databases can provide efficient and inexpensive access to summary results and key findings from industry reports, white papers, case studies and best practices.

Factiva

Business database containing full text articles from trade journals, newspapers, newsletters, wire stories, and press releases.

QUESTION: How can I locate some "free" excerpts of the industry statistics gathered by the National Restaurant Association?

In search box type hlp=(national restaurant association) and (survey* or benchmark* or best practice* or whitepaper* or white paper*)
SELECT DATE: pull down box and select last two years
SEARCH FOR FREE-TEXT TERMS IN: FULL ARTICLE (default)
Retrieve your results and then SORT BY: pull down box and select RELEVANCE

ABI Inform

Database containing full text articles from business, management, and industry journals covering management-focused topics, including operations, HR, leadership, and other related issues.

QUESTION: What are some quality issues facing the software industry?

Select the Advanced Search Tab
Type Quality Control and and select Subject from drop down box
From Drop down box select NAICS code and then Browse by code to find your appropriate code (511210 is software)
DATE RANGE: pull down box and select 12 months