What to Look For in a Business Information Provider

If you've decided it's too much work to do the information retrieval yourself, even for United States companies that are publicly traded, you will need to decide which provider you're going to use to give you the information. There are hundreds of providers out there with information to sell. Here are some things to think about before making up your mind: * Consider how much you plan to use the business information service. There are basically two kinds of business models. Some charge monthly or yearly for unlimited access. Others charge by the download. If you will be using the service a lot -- more than a few times per month -- it's worth considering a monthly or annual plan. Otherwise, it's much cheaper to purchase by the download. * Remember there's so much information available to anyone about publicly traded United States companies that many commercial providers will offer basically the same information. So base some of your decision on factors like customer service and pricing, too. * If you're going to be looking for information on private companies, too, consider this before making a purchase: Whereas many information providers share the same information about public companies, it's much more difficult to get serious financial data from a private company. So it might be worthwhile to search out a provider with a big database of profiles on privately owned businesses.

Start-Up Funding Available From the Federal Government

There's federal money available to help anyone who wants to do small business innovation research that could have the potential for commercialization in the future. This is a highly competitive program but it can be lucrative, with start-up funding of nearly $1 million per business available from the government to promote homegrown R&D. Start with the Small Business Administration web site (http://www.sba.gov) and look for links to the SBIR program. You need to be American-owned, have less than 500 employees and meet other stringent qualifications.

What's the Cost? Depends on What You're Looking For

Say you've made the decision that free resources aren't enough and you're ready to pay for access to a commercial business information center. How much does it cost? For the monthly membership sites like Hoover's or OneSource, it's tough to tell since they don't advertise prices. But Hoover's sells a Lite Membership with limited access to content for $69.95 monthly, so its full memberships are probably a lot more. More straightforward in terms of cost is a cost-per-download site like Manta.com or MarketResearch.com, which sells third-party reports and information for anywhere from $1 to more than $100 per download, depending on the amount of data requested.

Manta business solutions contains company information and business information reports for millions of companies worldwide. Business information resources, from competitors to suppliers, can be found online and are available for download.

Get Your Company Profile Up and Running

What if your company isn't being profiled? You may want to have a company profile available to any reputable site that allows visitors to search by company name. There are some directories that allow companies to build their own profiles online and then offer the option of an enhanced profile for a fee -- Superpages.com is an example of this model. Other providers will allow anyone to submit information about a company, but won't guarantee to include it. These free profiles are often less detailed than those created by professional business information specialists, and don't include news and articles from different sources about the company. But they do allow search by company name and every time you can get your company name out there, it will help.

Whether you're searching company information or you want your company to be searched, a form is available to search by company name or location. These results from Manta produce company profiles and information from business analysts.