Find a Company with checkSURE

Company Credit Check

Find a Company refers to the demand for company information from investors, consumers and organisations. Investors, particularly institutional investors, have a voracious appetite for company information. While some investors collect and analyse company information on their own, most investors rely on the equity research of stock brokers. The coverage of the stock brokers is, however, restricted to select stocks. For companies not covered by stock brokers, investors rely on profiles prepared by information providers such as Standard & Poor's and Thompson Corporation.

Consumer use of Find a Company

Consumers use Find a Company services for locating information on products and services. With the penetration of the Internet increasing worldwide, the number of consumers using Internet for accessing information as well as purchasing goods and services is increasing. Typically, most consumers use yellow pages for finding information on products and services. For detailed information, consumers usually access the corporate sites. Some consumers may subscribe to sites such as consumerreports.org for additional information and ratings. Consumers use corporate sites and e-commerce portals for purchasing goods and services.

Corporate use of Find a Company

Corporations are also using Find a Company services. Most corporations have set up business to business (B2B) sites for providing information and selling goods and services. Most companies rely on Find a Company services such as yellow pages or directory-based search engines for locating such sites. With the number of B2B transactions over the Internet increasing, the importance of Find a Company services has increased.

Indeed Find a Company services market is one of the fastest-growing segments of the information market. It can be segmented into three categories:

• General information,
• Company profiles
• Specialised information.

The general information segment of the Find a Company market is largely dominated by yellow pages. The yellow pages are published by both telecom companies and information providers. The online yellow pages such as the MSN Yellow Pages have become popular in the past few years.

The company profiles market is the largest segment of Find a Company services market. A typical company profile contains data and analysis about a company. Stock brokers are the leading providers of company profiles, but their coverage is limited to select stocks. Other leading information providers in this segment include Standard & Poor's a division of McGraw-Hill Companies and Thompson Corporation among others. In the past few years, Internet-based company profile providers such as Hoover's are increasing.

The specialised information segment includes providers of credit information on businesses such as Dun & Bradstreet. The use of credit reports for taking lending decisions and acquiring new customers is increasing worldwide.

Most companies providing Find a Company services with the exception of credit reference agencies have adopted a hybrid business model wherein basic information is provided free, but detailed financial information and analysis is restricted to subscribers. Credit reference agencies, however, provide little or no free information. Some information providers such as Thompson are going beyond Find a Company services to provide consumers with software tools and applications. The delivery media for Find a Company services is now predominantly digital. The market for Find a Company services is likely to deepen and broaden in the coming years.