Every customer is unique. So how much information does it really take to know your customer well? That depends on several factors. The complexity of what you deliver, the value of the customer relationship, whether you sell on credit and whether you have reporting obligations are some of them. Data about your customer can also help you tailor your communication so it becomes more relevant and give you a better understanding of how the customer's business model creates a dependency on you.
Here we present nine points that give an insight into some of the structured, external data available.
1. Group structure
Whether a company has a foreign owner, for instance, or a large parent company behind it, can be decisive information when you are assessing a possible partnership.
It can also be a useful prospecting tool. If you can point to a good relationship with another company in the same group, that is likely to carry weight with the sister company.
An example from the Enin web portal. Every box can be zoomed in on, and you can dig into each individual company in the overview.
2. Media coverage
A Google search is often the first thing people do when they want an overview of something they do not know well. It can be smart, though, to work with someone who has organised and prioritised the news in a form of media monitoring, so that you are shown what is most relevant.
Judging how relevant a news story is when it is linked to a company can be complicated. Sometimes small, local events can matter a great deal. At other times, regulatory changes can shift the conditions for success.
Here is a story where Enin has been picked up as a source by several different media outlets. By clicking through, you can see the actual coverage in a newspaper, in print or digitally.
3. Roles
Senior management, the board and people holding roles in a company are all in public registers, which means they are relatively easy to collect. Looking at the history and network of these people can be very valuable. Connections and patterns can emerge here that are not so easy to spot at first glance.
The example shows how people and companies are connected. Here with Enin and CEO Paul I. Huse as the example.
4. Payment remarks
This information from the debt collection agencies is often obtained by running a credit assessment. A payment remark can weigh heavily on whether credit is granted, but it can also say something about a company's priorities and the degree of financial distress it is in. Read more about what a payment remark is and how they arise in this blog post.
5. Court data
Before a company goes bankrupt, a bankruptcy petition will have been filed in the court system. There may also be disputes and cases that point to current events that could be negative for a business relationship. There are services that give you an overview of this and connect it to much of the other data we mention in the points above. Once the information is put into context, it becomes easier to judge how much it matters.
In larger companies such as Equinor there will often be, or have been, court hearings.
6. PEP and sanctions lists
To make it possible to identify whether a person or a company is connected to a particular network or circle, it may be necessary both to screen against PEP (Politically Exposed Person) and sanctions lists when entering into a customer relationship and to monitor this over time. A check against these registers typically looks for direct or indirect links to terrorist financing, money laundering, or family relationships that make a payment or a purchase suspicious.
The start of an Anti Money Laundering flow, where a check is made against PEP and sanctions lists.
7. Doffin announcements
A public contract can matter a great deal to a company's finances. Who wins these contracts is announced publicly, and it can be an advantage to keep track of who wins the tenders.
8. Announcements from Brønnøysundregistrene
Most major changes to company structure, changes of roles and anything else that affects how a business is run are announced through Brønnøysundregistrene.
Announcements relating to Equinor.
9. Key figures
Annual accounts can be obtained free of charge from Brønnøysund, but there are also several services where you can see key figures compiled for you. History and trends can be useful too, whether you prefer to have them presented in a particular overview or to pull the figures into Excel or another system and do your own calculations and analyses.
Is that all the company data I need?
There is a great deal more, and much of it will depend on your business and your customer's. Enin can guide you through the options out there, and also deliver everything mentioned above in a single solution.
