Staffelter Hof Winery is Germany's oldest business, established in 862 under the Carolingian dynasty. It has continued to serve customers through dramatic changes in Europe, such as the Holy Roman Empire, the Ottoman Empire, and both world wars. What characteristics enable a business to stand the test of time?
To help answer this question, BusinessFinancing.co.uk researched the oldest company still in business in almost every country and compiled the results into several CSV files. This dataset has been cleaned.
Having useful information in different files is a common problem. While it's better to keep different types of data separate for data storage, you'll want all the data in one place for analysis. You'll use joining and data manipulation to work with this data and better understand the world's oldest businesses.
The Data
businesses and new_businesses
| Column | Description |
|---|---|
business | Name of the business (varchar) |
year_founded | Year the business was founded (int) |
category_code | Code for the business category (varchar) |
country_code | ISO 3166-1 three-letter country code (char) |
countries
| Column | Description |
|---|---|
country_code | ISO 3166-1 three-letter country code (varchar) |
country | Name of the country (varchar) |
continent | Name of the continent the country exists in (varchar) |
categories
| Column | Description |
|---|---|
category_code | Code for the business category (varchar) |
category | Description of the business category (varchar) |
-- What is the oldest business on each continent?
WITH countryBusiness(continent, country, country_code, business,
year_founded)
AS (
SELECT
continent, country, b.country_code, business,
year_founded
FROM
businesses b
INNER JOIN
countries c
ON
b.country_code=c.country_code
order by continent, year_founded)
SELECT countryBusiness.continent, country, business, year_founded
FROM countryBusiness
INNER JOIN
(SELECT
distinct continent,
Min(Year_founded) over(partition by continent order by year_founded) as min_foundation_year
FROM countryBusiness
--where continent='Africa'
group by continent, Year_founded) min_year
ON
countryBusiness.continent=min_year.continent
AND
countryBusiness.year_founded=min_foundation_year
--HAVING year_founded=Min(year_founded)
/*continent, country, b.country_code, business,
year_founded
FROM
businesses b
INNER JOIN
countries c
ON
b.country_code=c.country_code
where continent='Africa'-- and year_founded=1772
order by continent, year_founded asc */
-- How many countries per continent lack data on the oldest businesses
-- Does including the `new_businesses` data change this?
Select c.continent, COUNT(c.country) as countries_without_businesses
FROM countries c
LEFT JOIN (
SELECT
b.country_code, b.business, b.year_founded
FROM businesses b
UNION
SELECT
nb.country_code, nb.business, nb.year_founded
FROM
new_businesses nb ) bnb
ON
c.country_code=bnb.country_code
WHERE bnb.business is NULL
GROUP BY c.continent-- Which business categories are best suited to last over the course of centuries?
Select distinct c.continent, busscat.category, Min(busscat.year_founded) OVER (partition by c.continent,busscat.category) as year_founded
FROM countries c
INNER JOIN (
SELECT
b.country_code, b.year_founded, ctg.category
FROM businesses b
INNER JOIN
categories ctg
ON
b.category_code=ctg.category_code) busscat
ON
c.country_code=busscat.country_code
GROUP BY c.continent, busscat.category, busscat.year_founded order by c.continent, busscat.category
/*SELECT
c.continent, b.country_code, b.year_founded, ctg.category
FROM businesses b
INNER JOIN
categories ctg
ON
b.category_code=ctg.category_code
inner join countries c on b.country_code=c.country_code
WHERE ctg.category='Defense'
*/