About Marketline

MarketLine (http://www.marketlineinfo.com/) is a business database that provides researchers and companies with user-friendly and interactive information on industries, countries, and companies. Products and services include, but are not limited to: live news and analysis feeds, country profiles, industry profiles with competitive analysis, key market statistics, and company profiles for public and private organizations. MarketLine states that their services can be used to:

-Create in-depth analyses of data across companies, industries and countries
-Research and develop new ideas, business and marketing plans and job opportunities
-Save time and effort in generating customized research solutions
-Benefit from highly developed R&A processes
-Utilize extensive global resources

MarketLine homepage

Company Profiles

Company information is located everywhere on the MarketLine site but a good place to start your search for a company profile is on the Company Information Browse All page. The link to the company page is in the middle of the home page.

MarketLine main page

From here you can search for a specific company or you can view companies grouped by industry (for example: consumer packaged goods, media, or textiles), by geography, by number of employees, or by annual revenue. Under a section called Key Indicators users will find a stock exchange list and industry lists. The industry lists are “top” lists, such as, the Top 50 Global Banks and the Top 10 Chocolate Manufacturers (number one on 05 Nov 2008 was Nestle SA).

Company Information main page

Let’s say you want a company profile on Nestle. If you know the company name you can enter it into the search bar at the top of the page. If you don’t know the company name but you know you want a profile on a chocolate company (maybe you want to start your own chocolate company and need competitor information?) you can use the industry category list. The best bet for a chocolate company is consumer packaged goods.

Company profile results

After selecting one of the industry categories users reach the advanced search area for company profiles. On the left side of the page are expandable lists of refining categories, the same groups found on the main company information page: industry, geography, annual revenue and number of employees. Refining by industry to find chocolate requires a few steps, browse by Industry > Consumer Packaged Goods > Food > Confectionery > Chocolate.

If there are too many choices, users can continue to refine until they reach a manageable number of options. Limiting the chocolate choices by Geography > Europe produces four results including Cadbury Schweppes plc.

Company overview

Selecting a company will bring up an overview page with a full company profile to view or to download. Items included in the overview, and expanded upon in the full profile, are the latest news and comments about the company, a SWOT analysis (product recall is a weakness), key executives, and key competitors (Nestle is a competitor of Cadbury).

Financial Deals Database

At the top of the MarketLine homepage is a tab called “find information”; selecting this option will take the user to the main search page (a good starting point for testing the database). The Information page lists the different databases that Marketline offers: base drivers, consumer markets, and financial deals.

Find Information main page

On the Financial Deals page is a list of all the results in the database, including rumored deals, announced deals, and completed deals. Users can refine the results or search within using the tools in the left column. Searching within all the financial deals for Cadbury produced 48 hits on 06 Nov 2008; the most recent rumored financial deal involving Cadbury is that it may acquire Leaf International (a Netherlands-based confectionery company).

Searching within financial deals

Base Drivers Database

MarketLine’s Base Drivers Database, on the Country Statistics page, is linked from the main search page and it allows users to search and analyze indicators (for example: the total value per capita of food retail sales or population living below the poverty line) with a country or indicator comparison. The page has expandable lists of geo-political groups, countries, classic indicators, PESTLE indicators, and industry indicators. Users can choose as many options as they need from the country and indicator lists. At the top of the page is a link to a chat box that enables users to talk with an analyst.

Country Statistics main page

After making their selection users can view the results which are downloadable in Excel format or viewable online; or they can analyze the results online or downloaded into Word, Excel or PowerPoint. Not surprisingly, when comparing the two indicators mentioned above, in Mexico, a steady decrease in people living below the poverty line coincides with a steady increase in food retail sales.

Analyze results

Country Profiles

Information on countries is located in two main places,in country statistics (the base drivers database) and in country profiles. Country profiles are Datamonitor reports, much like the industry profiles, and provide detailed analysis, such as:

the political, economic, social, technological, legal and environmental structure . . . [e]ach of the PESTLE factors is explored on four parameters: current strengths, current challenges, future prospects and future risks

Country Overview

The Country Overview page shows a map of the country, provides the population, links to the full profile, shows the latest news headlines relating to the country, lists key domestic players, and gives the latest industry profiles for the area.

Industry Profiles

Industry profiles are found in the same manner as company profiles, mainly the refining categories aspect. Users can start searching for an industry profile by clicking the Industry Information Browse link on the MarketLine home page and then narrowing the results. Performing the same search string as we used to find a company profile, Consumer Packaged Goods > Food > Confectionery > Chocolate, there are only two profiles for the chocolate industry. Like all the industry profiles in the MarketLine database the information is contained in a Datamonitor report. Datamonitor states that their

series of company, industry and country profiles complements . . . [their] premium products, providing top-level information on 10,000 companies, 2,500 industries and 50 countries. While they do not contain the highly detailed breakdowns found in premium reports, profiles give you the most important qualitative and quantitative summary information you need - including predictions and forecasts.

Industry profile results page

Selecting the Portuguese chocolate industry profile provides users with a pdf document from Datamonitor. The report contains both textual analysis and data tables (according to the July 2008 report molded bars sales proved the most lucrative for the Portuguese chocolate industry).

Consumer Markets Database

The Consumer Markets Database (linked from the main search page) is a service of Datamonitor, it lets users compare data from different industry sectors or industry sector by country. While not as fast or convenient as the base drivers database the consumer markets information is easy to gather. On the first screen users select from various consumer markets (for example: household products, news and magazine, or food) and on the second screen users select the geography to look in. Data is organized by type (market value, market volume, distribution, and company shares) and compared by country or consumer category.

Consumer Markets data selection

A comparison of the absolute market value of cereal bars, chocolate, and gum in the United States revealed that while chocolate continues to have the largest market value; cereal bars have had the largest overall growth in the past eight years with 82% since 2000.

Data comparison results

News & Comment

MarketLine’s News and Comment feed has a similar setup as the Financial Deals list, with all the results listed on the main page and refining and search within tools on the left side of the page. The results list can be sorted by title or publication date.

News and Comments main page

Searching MarketLine

If users are new to MarketLine or want to get a better feel for their products and services, the “find information” tab at the top of every page links to the Find Information page. From here one can see all the industry sectors covered in the database or choose one of the company, country, or statistic specific databases to use.

Find Information page