Mergent Inc. has deep roots. Its history traces back to 1900 when John Moody published Moody’s Manual of Industrial and Miscellaneous Securities. In 1998, Mergent, Inc. bought Moody’s Financial Information Services (Mergent website). Mergent’s understanding of the unique needs of the business researcher is clearly evident with the Intellect offering. This single interface provides access to an incredible collection of information. You can create customized local, national, and international company lists for sales leads, marketing, and supplier discovery. For diligence research you can access Hoover’s company (both private and public) profiles, with family tree structures; news stories; and credit risk ranking/indicators. Industry research reports are available through First Research. In addition to First Research, D&B’s Key Industry Ratios provides business ratio benchmark analysis by company or industry. For marketing efforts, partnerships with Whitepages Pro and Nielson provide access to contact information for over 250 million U.S. consumers, in addition to statistics covering demographics, behavior types, and consumer demand.
There are so many features in Mergent Intellect, it’s hard to just write about one. Perhaps the most impressive is the flexibility of the interface, which allows for easy linkage of data. For example, when looking at a company report, in the “Company Brief” section, under the “Company Details” tab, there is (powered by FirstRain) an interactive timeline graph with news event and management change (and if public – closing price, sec filing, and price change) data points. There are also heat maps showing Business Influencers, Market Drivers, and news via a Regional “Lens.” By clicking on any elements in these maps, you are directly taken to a list of the latest news stories on the web and social media mentions. For example, when researching Weyerhaeuser, if you select residential real estate trends in the Market Drivers map, news stories covering those trends in general and ones directly related to Weyerhaeuser are shown. You can click on the link to read the full story. Another example: when researching a company, and selecting the “Industry Details” tab, you get a corresponding industries list grouped by primary and secondary NAICS and SICS codes, along with links to the full text of First Research reports. So, when searching Weyerhaeuser, the primary NAICS code is Lessors of Residential Buildings and Dwellings 531110, and links to the recent reports “Residential Real Estate Brokerage & Management,” “Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs),” and “Residential Property Investment” are provided.
