Industry reports from major consulting firms

We've written before about the useful "Doing Business In" country guides available for free from many of the major management/accounting consulting firms.  Those same firms are often also good sources for industry insights and surveys.  Which brings me to the short list below...

Deloitte provides landing pages for several broad sectors, each of which will lead you to current analysis and "perspective" reports:

• Consumer and Industrial Products
• Energy & Resources
• Financial Services
• Life Sciences & Health Care
• Public Sector
• Technology, Media & Telecommunications

In addition, Deloitte provides some country-specific industry outlooks and insights.  Choose a country from the drop-down list at their site, then scan for "Industry" sections. For example, Deloitte covers several Canadian industries: just click on the word "Industries" in the top-right corner of their Canada page. If you dig down far enough on the Deloitte site, you'll get to some very useful analysis such as this report on the evolution of personal transportation choices and preferences: The changing nature of mobility and this report on the flexibility of Canada's businesses and economy: Age of disruption: Are Canadian firms prepared?

Grant Thornton offers many free articles and reports in the Insights part of the global level of their site. As with Deloitte, though, to get country-specific reports, your best bet is to choose a country via the Locations link on their global site, then navigate to the country page. At that point, choose Publications or Insights, rather than Sectors or Industries.  The latter terms will tend to get you advertisements for the services that GTI provides, while the former can get you to reports such as this one on the UK Food & Beverage sector and this one on Mining in Canada.

Ernst & Young also offers some useful industry/market reports, but the routes to them aren't always clear. I've had some good luck scanning their various country sites for Insights or Issues links.  It may also be worth going to their Library page and choosing a country, then looking/hoping for an industry or issues category. That's how I found this report on Oil & Gas in Malaysia and this report on Infrastructure Developments in Russia.

PwC's global site offers many industry landing pages. As with many of the other consultancies, their industry pages are partly meant to sell their services, but they also provide pretty smooth access to any publications they may have on a given industry. See, for instance, these publications on Pharmaceuticals & Life Sciences.  And, as with the other firms, navigating down to the country-specific PwC pages can get you to many more-focused reports. Check each country site for headings such as Publications, Issues, or Thought Leadership. For example, here is the PwC-Philippines' Thought Leadership page and here is PwC-Poland's page for Publications, Reports, Research & Insights.

Short version: It may take some digging, but looking for industry-specific reports at consulting firm's sites is often worth the effort.  Although we do subscribe to some useful industry survey resources such as IBISWorld, no single database will contain all the answers you need. It's always a good idea to have some alternatives bookmarked.

Do you have a favourite site for such reports? We'd love to hear about it!

MarkB .... On behalf of your entire Business Librarian team:

• Mark Bodnar (Business – Burnaby): mbodnar@sfu.ca
• Megan Sorenson (Business – Vancouver): megan_sorenson@sfu.ca
• Ania Dymarz (Business – Surrey): adymarz@sfu.ca