Part II: Crafting Queries and Using the Google Research Tools in VS .NET

Generator QR Code JIS X 0510 in VS .NET Part II: Crafting Queries and Using the Google Research Tools

What are the industry products and services What is the gross revenue of the industry How profitable is the industry Who are the customers (for example, consumers, or other businesses) Is the industry localized National Worldwide What s the general level of education in the industry (Mining and farming both have rather different average levels of education than software development) Who are the top five players in the industry The top 25 players Is the industry growing or shrinking Is it in trouble What political interactions or interventions affect the industry Is the industry facing any paradigm shifts, or is it in business as usual mode

The Google Directory provides an excellent starting place to learn about the structure of an industry (I explain how to open and use the Google Directory in both search and browse mode in 7) To find out more about an industry (such as energy services), follow these general steps: 1 Click the Business link on the main Google Directory page See Figure 9-4 2 Choose the business category that suits your query For example, Figure 9-5 shows the Energy and Environment category 3 To find more about a business, continue clicking category links For example, if you re interested in more about the oil and gas businesses, as shown in Figure 9-6, click the Oil and Gas link

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4 Select yet another subcategory, and another, until you have a complete financial picture For example, as you can see in Figure 9-7, a number of subcategories can help you learn about energy and services in the Oil and Gas category 5 Peruse the categories that are most likely to give you an industry overview In the Oil and Gas category, the Industry Resources subcategory is a great place to start because it provides industry overview information Many of the links in Industry Resources (some of which are shown in Figure 9-8) are to sites that (on a free or paid basis) provide excellent snapshots, thorough analysis, and predictive information about the energy services industry 6 Look for company-specific information For example, in the Oil and Gas category, the following subcategories are likely to be helpful because they offer company-specific information: Operating Companies Services Companies Tools and Equipment

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One attractive way to gather information about an industry is to use the Google Web search engine Not surprising, is it For example, to learn about the energy services industry as a whole, a search for the terms energy services industry profile provides links to a number of sites with great information (see Figure 9-9) The wonderful thing is that the search results aren t the same as those found in the Google Directory Some of the best links that come up in the return results shown in Figure 9-9 are to Yahoo! Finance, Businesscom, Hoover s, and ZapData (part of Dun and Bradstreet) Some business information is given away for free, but be prepared to purchase so-called premium data such as sales leads One notable exception is Yahoo! Finance, which at this writing appears to offer all its information for free

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Based on the industry information you gather using the Google Directory, and the data you obtain from sites you find searching the Web, you can profile an industry, perhaps as follows: Energy Services Industry Profile The energy services industry provides products and services to the energy industry in the following segments: Exploration: Geological, geophysical, and other exploration-related services Oil field equipment: Drill bits, pipes, pumps, and so on Field services: Well drilling, operations management, clean-up, and more There are about 120 companies of any size (this number includes international and private companies as well as publicly owned companies in the US; for a list see http://bizyahoocom/ic/oilsrv_cl_allhtml Publicly traded companies in the industry range from the tiny (less than $1 million in annual sales) to the huge, such as Halliburton, which has more than $20 billion in revenue, and Schlumberger, with a $36 billion market capitalization However, most industry players have market capitalization and revenue in the hundreds of millions Total size of the industry, based on annual revenue, is estimated to be about $100 billion (see wwwzapdatacom)