You have just received the following memo:

To: Librarian/Information Manager
From: Robert V. Williams, Director, Research Division
Subject: More Information: Industry Data

The package of information you prepared on ____________ was very useful to our purposes. Could you now please see if you can answer the following questions about the industry within which the company is located. We need this information fairly quickly!

Just give us the specific answers to these questions in this order but it is OK to use cut and paste pages (or printouts from online files) as long as we know what the sources are for each.

1. How large is the industry in the US and then overseas? What are the annual sales, exports to and from the US (and to which major countries), and how many people are employed in it? If you could give the figures for the major parts/sections (eg., following the SIC/NAICS codes) of the industry that would be helpful but not essential.  (PS: If you have a very specific industry that is even narrower than the closest existing SIC/NAICS code number--and you still want to do your work on that industry--then go ahead and do that.  However, you will have to do a more detailed searching job for articles and statistics relevant to that small industry.)

2. Find us a source that gives an analytical assessment of the past five years in the industry and predictions about the future of the industry (about the next five years).

3. Give us the names of the top 10 companies in this industry (in the US and overseas) and tell us what percent of the market they have in it.

4. What are the major industry associations serving this industry and what can they do for us if we buy this company?

5. What agency of the US government principally regulates the companies in the industry and what do they do to help or hinder the industry in its work. (Give a brief citation to the place where the major regulations affecting it are located.) Particularly, does the federal government do anything to help with exports or imports of the major products of the company/industry?

6. What are the top 10 countries where exports of the major products of this company/industry are exported?

7. Some industries have a "guru" who supposedly knows what is happening (profitability of companies in it, trends, future, etc.) within the industry. Does this industry have one?

8. Give us some citations to really good and recent articles that discuss trends in this industry (but, be sure to digest the essential information, particularly statistical data,  into the sections above).

9. Anything else you think would be useful towards helping us understand this industry.