 Major Investments Planned for Information Quality and Technology | |
As the world transacts business at an ever-increasing speed, D&B is investing in our data and technology to help you keep pace and achieve your agency missions. The investments in our data and infrastructure will leverage recent advances in technology to bring you the highest quality information with an unparalleled level of insight in the US and around the world. In this newsletter, we have highlighted some of our key 2010 initiatives.
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| Small Business Coverage to Expand in US |
 In the latest available statistic, the Small Business Administration (SBA) estimated that there were 29.6M businesses in the United States. That estimate does not account for the number of business sites - as the D&B D-U-N-S Number® does. Businesses with multiple locations (e.g. branches) are not included in the SBA statistic. To give you full insight into US businesses, in 2010, we are focused on growing our small business coverage to more than 32M businesses, including more than 2 million branch locations.
To bring you more insight on small businesses, we are focused on identifying new businesses. For starters, many new businesses register for a D&B D-U-N-S Number, so we are capturing some new business as they begin to formalize their operations. We are also on the look-out for "incubating" businesses - we begin to identify these new businesses through data partnerships with our customers, and new data sources that provide deeper, vertical coverage of small businesses like independent contractors. Additionally, we add new businesses that have a strong online presence such as eBay Power Sellers and others.
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| More Financial Statements = More Insight |
 You've told us you need financial statements to make confident decisions. We're acting on that feedback, and in 2010 we are focused on growing the number of Financial Statements we have on private businesses exponentially. Since the end of 2009, we've already doubled the number of financial statements in our files, and as the year continues, you can expect to see more financial statements in your reports.
Financial statements are presented "as supplied" to D&B. While it is easier for D&B to gain access to public company financial statements, it is more difficult to obtain financial statements on smaller businesses. However, small and mid-sized companies are acknowledging the importance of data availability at D&B, realizing that it makes it easier for them to do business with their suppliers, their bank and their insurance company, when their information is available from D&B.
As with all information we put into the D&B database, financial statements are subjected to our sophisticated system of checks and balances. With financial statements, we do make edits and validations as the information is entered into the system. As an example, we automatically check for inconsistencies in the data, such as: Do the numbers add up? Do the assets equal the liabilities? Our Financial Services Collection Team has also been trained to perform manual checks during data entry and look for suspicious statements or suspect accounting firms. Questionable accounts are forwarded to D&B High Risk Team for more detailed investigation.
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| Efforts to Increase Coverage on Global Business Underway | |
 Today our global business database includes 164 million businesses, which represents 11% growth over prior year. Our goal over the next few years is to have 250 million businesses in our database. To reach that milestone, we are focused on the "BRIC" countries: Brazil, Russia, India and China due to strong continued economic growth and interest in these regions.
In 2008, our partnership with Interfax provided access to six times more coverage in Russia. In Brazil we now cover more than 5 million businesses. In 2010, we continue to focus on China and India. We expect to double our file size in these countries this year to bring you better match rates and greater insight on the businesses within them.
- China coverage to grow from 3M to 6M businesses
- India coverage to grow from 4.5M to 9M businesses
Our coverage includes not only the breadth of coverage but the depth of the information we have on businesses. And we are pleased to report we have made considerable progress in both areas over the past year.
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| Turkey and Turkish Republic of Cyprus added to D&B's Worldwide Network | |
D&B has signed an agreement to extend our strategic relationship with D&B SAME, which currently covers Middle East and North Africa to now include Turkey and the Turkish Republic of Cyprus.
Turkey is an important market as it attracts significant foreign investment. Through this extended partnership, we will increase the value we provide and our data quality in Turkey will improve dramatically by:
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Increasing business coverage from 62% to 98%
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Improving both data depth and freshness (e.g., bulk financial statements, line of business, linkage)
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Launching a trade program and predictive scores
We're very confident this partnership will help meet your emerging needs for commercial insight on Turkey.
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| Individual Information Available
Governments can now access information on over 315 million individuals through D&B:
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Identity Data
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Relatives
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Associations
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Assets
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Licenses
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Criminal Records
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Questions? |  | |
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Government Customer
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| Data Center Transition Update
As we move our data center operations to a new state-of the-art facility, we hope to have minimal or no impact to your business processes.
The next extended weekend maintenance window will begin Saturday, June 12, 2010 at 6 PM EST and end Sunday, June 13, 2010 at 6 PM EST.
To learn more, contact us.
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