How many times in your job have you needed some information but didn't have the time to find it, or perhaps didn't know the best place to get it? Chances are, more than once. Maybe you wanted to know what the recent trends are in the juvenile furniture market? What the size is of exports to the U.S. of Australian wines? What new frozen cookie is being test marketed by a major food manufacturer? Or even, if there is a recipe for malted milk balls?


Questions like these are not unusual to FIND/SVP and there's not one question that they will not at least try to answer.

The New York-based company is a worldwide information and research service, the largest business information center in America. Its goal is to satisfy the research and information needs of American businesses and their executives by providing a convenient, fast and cost-efficient service that is literally one phone call away. It also provides other research services and information products to meet clients' marketing, competitive and business intelligence needs. More than half of the Fortune 100 use FIND as an adjunct to in-house research staffs.

Founded in 1969 by Andrew P. Garvin and Kathleen S. Gingham, FIND has a research staff of 65 information specialists, researchers, analysts and consultants. It has access to over 1,000 databases, 11,000 subject files and 10,000 company files, current and back issues of 1,700 periodicals, thousands of reference works, and personal information sources and contacts around the world.

Four divisions

Four divisions make up FIND: Quick Information Service, Strategic Research Division, Published Studies, and Information Catalog.

The QIS is the starting point for a business's information needs. If a question can be answered here, the caller is transferred to a subject specialist from one of six subject groups at FIND: the Consumer Group, the Industrial/Technical Group, the Healthcare Group, the Business/Company/Finance Group, the Central Search Group, or the Document Services Group. Clients discuss their information needs with the researcher who helps pinpoint just what information is required. Some information can be answered immediately, but the center's average turnaround time is 24-48 hours.

QIS answers more than 70,000 questions a year and represents approximately 60% of FIND's business. When a question comes in that's too involved for a quick answer, it is referred to the Strategic Research Division. The SRD combines the extensive resources of the company's information center with the survey and interview techniques of an experienced staff to provide in-depth custom research.

In the Published Studies division, FIND produces and publishes approximately 25 copyrighted, syndicated or off-the-shelf studies which cover such markets and industries as prepared frozen foods, children's toys and games and industrial ceramics.

The Information Catalog division is a bimonthly offering of industry and company reports, studies, books and other information, produced by FIND/ SVP and other research companies. Distributed to 75,000 business executives, the catalog is a compendium of market information and competitive intelligence.

Competitive information

Having access to competitive information is a major reason why Dornier Medical Systems, Marietta, Gal, uses FIND. Dornier imports, distributes and services lithotripters - a device for fragmenting kidney stones with sonic shock waves - developed and manufactured in West Germany by Dornier GmbH, a major West German aircraft manufacturer. John Warlick, marketing information systems coordinator at Dornier, says FIND can access between 15-20 databases that store competitive information.

"We're looking for anything that has to do with our competitors, who they are, what their products are, and anything that's published on them." This kind of information is then pulled together into a monthly report by FIND and forwarded to Dornier's marketing department.

Specifically, FIND provides Dornier with press releases from competitor companies. While Dornier would eventually get this material, FIND assures it gets a copy as soon as the information is released so that Dornier always has “up-to-the-minute” knowledge of competitor activity. FIND also accesses competitor and industry information from medical journals and publications Dornier may not subscribe to.

Calls to competitors

On request, FIND will even make telephone calls to competitor companies, says Warlick. No deception is involved, however. FIND personnel always identify themselves, explain why they're calling, and acknowledges that it's working for a client. Even with such honesty, most of Dornier's competitors "have been very helpful” says Warlick. "FIND has received a lot of timely information this way. Companies will reveal all sorts of things."

Since Dornier established an in-house strategic research department, it only utilizes FIND's QIS. This service is most useful to Dornier, says Warlick. "We can call anytime to ask any odd-ball question. Primarily, FIND provides us with demographic information, medical research information, and Census data, such as the incidence of kidney stones and gall bladder stones in a particular area of the country."

Its services also come in handy for company-related needs as well. Explains Warlick, if Dornier has a sales meeting planned in Orlando, for example, and wants to know where some local five-star restaurants are to bring clients, FIND is there to solve that kind of problem too.

In a nutshell, FIND has been able to help Dornier answer all types of questions in a cost-effective and timely fashion. "And if they can't answer a question for you, they can tell you who can," notes Warlick.

Glaxo, Inc.

Another satisfied FIND client is Glaxo, Inc., Research Triangle Park, N.C. Glaxo, a producer and marketer of prescription medicines, is the world's fifth largest ethical pharmaceutical company in terms of sales. The company has been using FIND for about 2 1/2 years for a variety of purposes and to supplement other secondary resources the company has in-house, according to George Matijow, manager, marketing research at Glaxo.

"We use the services to get quick information on other companies and their products for potential licensing or business development purposes. We also call FIND to get information on our competitors and their product lines, sales data, and price lists."

Forecasting purposes

Finding out how many people have a certain type of disease is another area Glaxo uses FIND so that it can forecast how a drug it may want to produce to treat that disease will do on the market. In addition, FIND also routinely sends the company articles about Glaxo and its competitors from periodicals the company does not subscribe to.

Most of the information Glaxo gets from FIND is used in the early stages of more thorough research that will follow, says Matijow. Sometimes Glaxo will conduct custom research to expand on the information it receives, and sometimes FIND suggests that the company do it.

The main advantage to FIND is that it's quick, echoes Matijow. "There's no one else you can call to do this sort of leg work."