Hello Jason,

I was curious about site visits and how they are conducted by analysts/firms in different countries. So please answer the question below

[[I do realize the answer/assumptions of the information below vary to some degree from country to country, as well as from organization to organization]]

In order to analyze companies better which employee/s:-

Junior Analyst
Associate Analyst
Research Analyst
Fund Manager/Portfolio Manager (yes i realize that the Buy Side depends upon the Sell Side research to some degree)
or is it some other employee from some other department, either the PR, sales or risk (i know it is very unlikely but still, is it possible?)

Conduct company site visits and if they do so, what do they do during these site visits? Is it just a meeting to maintain communications or is it that they actually analyze the company on their visits? For example if it a manufacturing concern do they actually look at what is being produced and why (but to do that properly wouldn't they need to have the same knowledge as ISO auditors and other details regarding the manufacturing process, materials, etc) and if it is a services oriented business then are the company's processes analyzed, the culture within a company and their manner of management in terms of employee performance measurement, its impact on customer satisfaction, etc?

(I do realize that such detail is probably more of a consulting firm's manner of analyzing a business [because I have done the same myself] or a Bank's corporate relationship manager for loan approvals, but still i would like to know if similar activities are done by analysts and if they are different, then exactly how are they different?)
.
also, are company visits carried out by:-
Brokerage firms
asset management firms
Investment banks
or all of them

I am asking this because I read about it in an article once (cannot find it now) as well as on the websites of Morgan Stanley and KeyBank, I just want to understand the ground reality of these site visits by analysts in countries other than my own.

Regards
Jibran