Business plans

Guides and Sample Plans

• Bplans.com
• Business Plans Handbook- Select 'Business' and then 'Business Plans Handbook'.
• New venture creation : entrepreneurship for the 21st century
• Search the McGill Library catalogue for books using the subjects "business planning" or "small business -- planning".

Industry Information & Demographics

• Marketline (Datamonitor) - SWOT analysis, competitors, market share, related industry reports.
• Passport GMID (Euromonitor) - Focus on consumer goods & services. Background, competitive environment, market shares, industry data, outlook and more. .
• eMarketer - Analysis, reports and data for consumer technology, e-commerce, wireless, digital media, internet usage and habits and more.
• PMB Online - Results of Canadian consumer surveys, e.g. brand preference, product usage, with responses broken down by age, income, city, education, family type, etc.
• Statistics Canada - Detailed Census and other StatCan survey data .
• Industry Canada - Provides industry profiles, including searches by NAICS codes.
• Canadian Business Patterns- Number of Canadian establishments by city, NAICS and number of employees. See librarian for assistance in use
• Business Source Complete - Journal articles, news and reports on industries and companies.
• CBCA Complete - trade journals, articles from business magazines and journals (Canadian-specific)

Financial Statements

• Sedar - Corporate filings of companies operating in Canada, required by securities regulators, includes competitive environment, markets, products, assets and future plans.
• EDGAR - Filings with the US Securities & Exchange Commission by companies listed on US exchanges. 10K reports give the most detailed information. Also available through company profiles in Mergent Online.
• Mergent Online - International coverage, mostly public companies. Comprehensive financials, competitors, annual reports, and more.
• Value Line Investment Survey- Concise reports on more than 90 US industries. Contains Timeliness rank, performance against Value Line composite, aggregate industry financials/key ratios and analyst commentaries.

Financial Planning

• SME Benchmarking Tool - Interactive online financial performance tool to help new and established firms determine how they measure up to the competition. Enter your company's financial data confidentially and compare it to industry averages.
• Annual Statement Studies-Financial Ratio Benchmarks - Contains financial ratios and industry averages for American firms.

City-level data

• FP Markets Canadian Demographics 2012
• Stats Can GeoSearch 2006 or 2011 (view a map of various demographic trends)
• Stats Can Census Tract Profiles 2006 or 2011 (view demographics of small areas such as postal code regions)

Competitor Lists

Advertising Costs

• Canadian Advertising Rates and Data (CARD)- Latest information only. Previous issues available in the library.
• Advertising Red Books (LexisNexis)- Domestic & international advertising agencies and advertisers, including ad expenditures, sales, products advertised, and contact information.
• National List of Advertisers- Rates for advertising campaigns by company or brand. Available in the library
• Ad$pender - Advertising expenditure by product category, parent company, subsidiary company, and brand for various media for the last 5 years.

Starting a business websites

• Canadian Business Start-up Assistant (Gov of Canada)
  Business start-up info from the federal and provincial government. Covers many topics; market research, business plans, taxation, business number, etc.
• Créer son entreprise/Starting a business (Revenu Québec)
  Information on registering a business in Québec, creating a business plan, obtaining financing, etc.
• Info entrepreneurs (Gov of Canada)
  Info on start-up, women entrepreneurs, young entrepreneurs, export, etc.

Sample Legal Forms

• O'Brien's Encyclopedia of Forms (Sample Canadian legal forms)

Creating Résumés

• Online Career Library (Vault Guides)
• Search the library catalogue using "resumes (employment)" as a subject term.

• Job Futures - Canada's national career and education planning tool