Charlie's Business Resource Page

Case Templates
While cases can not be "cookbooked," these templates serve as a framework and check list. They should be very helpful to any one taking a Strategic Management or Finance course. Note that depending on your browser, you may need to save the file to your disk using a "right click." Comments are welcome.

Here's generic templates for

Company fact sheets with a WinWord template;

Short business case studies with a WinWord template; and

Long business case studies with a WinWord template.

This Excel template is almost everything you need for an MBA or finance class by itself. It performs the usual payment calculations of a financial calculator (such as the HP 12 C), number comparisons/stats/graphs, costing, MACRS, ratios and more. All are works in progress so use them at your own risk.

Other on-line cases are available from State of Texas; Department of Information Resources; ISWorld ; and ErgoWeb.

Gathering Data on the Web

Search Areas
Try typing the company name as a URL in the location area of your browser. I.E. In the area that now says "http://www.uvi.edu/cerit/busnss.htm" type www.XXX.com where XXX is the name of your target company.
If that fails, see what you can find by searching for the full company name below. Try putting the name in quotes. Do general searches with the company name and include key words like "Annual Report," "Corporation," "Fact Sheet," and "Case Study."

You will often need to narrow your search to use these engines. If you simply type keywords of interest in a row, the search engine assumes that you want any document that has any of the words listed. There are effective ways to narrow your search. Group words that should be together (like names) with quotes (""). Put a plus (+) before word(s) that must be found in the document. Put a minus (-) before word(s) that should not be found. Most search engines are case sensitive.

Alta Vista:		Excite:
Infoseek:		Magellan:
Yahoo:		Who Where Companies:

Get the target company's stock code with a Edgar Code Search or PC Quote Name Search then look up current and historical stock information from DBC Quotes; Market Guide Stockmaster, PC Quote Microwatch, Secapl Quotes or Wall Street City. BigCharts.com provides great charts. If you need other stock exchanges, go to InfoRamp.

There are a few companies that provide company profiles. Try

Pathfinder;

Wall Street Research Net;

Hoover's Company Profiles.

See if your target company has filed electronically at "Edgar" Security and Exchange Commission or WhoWhere Edgar. Watch it! These files can be big! Also look for company specific articles in The American Stock Exchange and Vestnet.

Here is some historical information for various indexes.

Government Information
Check out the Better Business Bureau for consumer information. Much information on small business start-ups and such is available from SBA Online. If you need tax information, go to El's Tax Guide. The Federal Reserve Bank of New York; is a searchable source for current market rates and other Federal Reserve information. It is well worth reading their welcome page. Look at the Federal Trade Commission for general trading information. The Security and Exchange Commission provides a lot of stock information.

Other Useful Business Sources
CyberAtlas Internet Business Statistics; Dow Jones; Financial Data Finder; Ohio State's MBA Page; Ohio State's Virtual Finance Library; Peperdine's MBA Page; University of Texas Finance Page; Vanderbilt's SQuIRT; and Wall Street Research Net.
My general reference page is at Charlie's Links.

Maintained by Charles V. Balch, charlie@balch.org

This page has HITS since March 1997

Last modified .