It’s never been easier to make
good business decisions with credit reports merely four clicks
away
A
decade or so ago the typical company credit report cost about £20
and the hard copy (eventually) landed on the customer’s desk via
the fax machine. Fast forward, and how the world has changed!
Go deeper with GlobalData
‘Unlimited’ credit reports are now
available for as little as £400 per annum. And delivery has
undergone a radical transformation to the delight of both the busy
and the plain impatient.
In 18 seconds and four clicks of a
mouse, you can discover everything about a director of a limited
company, including where he or she lives, their age, what their
house looks like… In minutes, you will have traced any companies
they have associations with and quite possibly have viewed (with
permission) a detailed personal credit history.
So with company credit report pricing
at a low and data pinged to mobile phones in an instant, everyone
is now plugged in to this goldmine of financial information, right?
Well, the amazing thing is no, not really.
Experience of selling company credit
information for 13 years has led me to believe that businesses can
be split into four distinct groups. Firstly there are the
‘Refusniks’, who shun credit reports as a matter of principle,
seeing them as an invasion of privacy; or they simply prefer to
trust their ‘gut instinct’. One step up come the ‘Processors’,
typically the accounts team handling a new customer or a sale.
Third are the ‘Curious’ found in companies with active departmental
users – sometimes they simply check out their next door neighbour
and other times, more usefully, a sales prospect. And finally, the
‘Enlightened’ – thankfully for the UK economy, a growing number of
companies that fully embrace the benefits of instant financial
data.
How well do you really know your competitors?
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By GlobalDataOf the four, it is not hard to divine
which has the best record for survival and success.
Clearly, company credit reporting has
advanced to a new level. Gone are the days of printing off company
credit health checks as an annual event. With access to a good
online financial dashboard, businesses can now effortlessly monitor
their customers, suppliers and prospects on a daily basis.
Organisations that take a strategic
financial view of the companies around them certainly have a head
start. They are in prime position to spot growth trends and can
support their sales teams with information about who is about to go
out of business as well as key associations and dates.
‘Know your customer’ has always been a
basic requirement for business, and never more so than now. And
given that fully understanding the companies you interact with is
no longer an expensive dream or a time-consuming hassle, businesses
are in the enviable position of making their own luck: they just
need the right tools and 18 seconds or so to use them – simple as
that.
Jeremy Hall is
CEO of WestWon Limited
