Who is Dun and Bradstreet®?

The official line on The Dun & Bradstreet® Corporation doing business as D&B® Corp, is that the company provides information, tools and expertise to help its customers come up with trusted business information solutions.

That’s a pretty broad definition but for the most part accurate.  D&B® has been collecting information on businesses from literally thousands of sources for over 160 years.  The company takes this information, does its best to assure its quality, and then presents that information in various formats to other businesses for sale.

D&B® breaks its sales divisions into 3 distinct categories.  Companies use D&B®’s Risk Management Solutions, that is, business credit reports, to manage credit exposure.  They use D&B®’s Sales & Marketing Products to find profitable customers (refined mailing and telemarketing lists).  Finally, companies use D&B®’s Supply Management Solutions to help manage suppliers efficiently.  The focus of this website is the first of those 3 products… D&B®’s Business Credit Report.     

Dun & Bradstreet® began collecting information on businesses in 1849.  Louis Tappan was the founder of a New York City based company called The Mercantile Agency.  In 1849 Tappan turned the Agency over to a former clerk, Benjamin Douglas.  Douglas used the coming improvements in communications and transportation to begin opening more offices across the country.  This provided the Agency with additional new information and more customers.  

Also in 1849, a rival company was formed in Cincinnati, Ohio called the John M. Bradstreet Company.  In 1851 Bradstreet’s company published the first book to interpret credit information and assign commercial ratings.   

In 1859, Douglas turned his Agency over to his brother-in-law, Robert G Dun and the Company name was changed to R.G. Dun & Company.  Through the turn of the century these two companies competed fiercely with each other.  Dun’s company continued to expand under Tappan’s original vision by opening up new offices across the country and into international boundaries.   

In the early 1930’s, the effects of the fierce competition on each company along with the economic depression bought the two rivals together.  In 1933, the companies agreed to a merger and formed Dun & Bradstreet.   

Since that time D&B® has been an innovator and leader in the use of the various developments in communications and computing technology.  D&B® moved from being just a supplier of credit reports to a leader in the international information industry.  With the introduction of the D-U-N-S number (Data Universal Numbering System) in 1963, D&B® truly brought business credit information into the computer age.  The D-U-N-S number has today become a standard business identifier for governments and agencies around the world.  

In 2000, in an effort to streamline, D&B® spun off a number of companies so that each company could become more focused on their specific purpose and strategies.  You’ve probably heard of some of those companies.  They include the names Moody’s Corporation, R.H. Donnelley and A.C. Nielsen.  Some pretty good names themselves.  Because of D&B®’s age and aggressive efforts to grow and collect the best and most accurate information possible, they have positioned themselves as the number one supplier of business credit reports in the world.  It has been our experience that the information contained in D&B®’s database is used by 99% of the lending institutions that offer application only financing programs.  These lenders typical use a credit scoring model.  These scoring models are very expensive to build and D&B® is installed into the model as the standard source of business credit information.   The banks and other lenders are not about to spend millions in changing their models.  D&B®’s future looks bright in that regard.   
 

Consider the following facts that D&B® publishes on their website.

   
During 2002:

• The Global D&B® database grew by over 10 million records to 80 million businesses.
• Over 40,000 new family tree members were added to the database, bringing the total number of globally linked businesses to 7.6 million.
• Nearly 372,000 new businesses from the Asia Pacific region were added to the D&B® database.
• Approximately 390,000 new businesses from the Latin America region were added to the D&B® database.
• The US Marketing file increased by over 3 million records to nearly 18 million businesses.

Based on D&B®’s database activity:

In the next 60 minutes …

• 360 businesses will have a suit, lien or judgment filed against them
• 240 business addresses will change
• 150 business telephone numbers will change or be disconnected
• 112 directorship (CEO, CFO, etc.) changes will occur
• 20 corporations will fail
• 12 new businesses will open their doors
• 4 companies will change their names

So in a year…

• 20% of all addresses change
• 21% of CEO’s will change
• 18% of Telephone numbers will change  

D&B® is by far the dominant force in business credit information.