Industry ratios...

Industry ratios are useful when analyzing a company and its financial performance in the context of the competition and the overall industry.

One of the well-known resources in the area is from D&B (Dun and Bradstreet). At USFSP, we have access to the online database version "Key Business Ratios" (Under "Databases by title/subject", select subject=business and economics; sub-category=ratio databases.). We also have copies of the corresponding annual print publication, "Industry Norms and Key Business Ratios" (HF5681.R25 I52) in the reference collection on the first floor.

Other important resources for business ratios include the following:

• "IRS corporate financial resources", Schonfeld & Associates (HF5681.B2I2)
• "Almanac of business and industrial financial ratios", Leo Troy (HF5681.R25 T68)
• "RMA annual statement studies", Robert Morris Associates (HF5681.B2R6)

All of these publications are available on on the first floor of the USFSP Library.

Each of these resources has different strengths or features that may be more suited to your needs for any specific project. For example, some may cover more industries or include more businesses (public-only or public & private companies); define or divide industries differently (i.e. by SIC codes and/or asset sizes); and include more or different financial ratios. You may also need to consider how the data is collected -- from SEC filings or IRS filings, etc. -- and for how many years the data is available.

Harvard Business School - "HBS Working Knowledge"

As another example of the resources available through business schools...

"HBS Working Knowledge" is a forum for business executives, educators, (and students!) to follow the research and work being done by the over 200 Harvard Business School faculty. You can sign-up for a weekly email newsletter or subscribe to the RSS feed to follow new content in your reader.

Content on the site includes articles, working papers, Q&A, case study discussions, and podcasts. The focus is on practical business advice and ideas. You can browse the most recent features or search by topic, industry, geography, date or keywords.

As an example, the feature article on the site today is entitled, "HBS Cases: One Laptop per Child", which discusses a recent HBS case study and the opportunities and challenges behind this initiative addressing global poverty.

Facebook - the good, the bad, the ...

For those of you who use or follow Facebook, you've likely heard about the controversy over "Beacon", a new advertising program introduced by Facebook about a month ago. Users protested when they discovered that by ignoring small pop-up messages, they were opting-in to an advertising feature that monitors and shares their online behaviors. A petition protesting Beacon was signed by over 50,000 Facebook users. Today, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg apologized and announced the feature will be changed to recognize ignoring a message as opting out of the service. The story is reported here in the NY Times.

On a different Facebook note, a recent blog posting by Bill Ives at his "Portals and KM" blog discusses how the software firm Serena has instituted Facebook as the platform for its company intranet. (Serena has 800 employees in 18 countries.) Employees go to specific people on Facebook to get the information they need; company documents are stored by firewalls.

Harvard professor Andrew McAfee discusses this blog posting as "must read" to understand the potential business value of Facebook and other social networking and Web2.0 tools.