Dun & Bradstreet

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Dun & Bradstreet Corporation
Type Public (NYSE: DNB)
Founded New York City, New York 1841
Headquarters Short Hills, New Jersey
Key people Steven W. Alesio, Chairman/CEO
Sara S. Mathew, President/COO
Jeff Hurwitz, General Counsel
Products Business information, services, research, software
Revenue $1.443 billion USD (2005)
Employees 4,350 (2005)
Website www.dnb.com
"D&B" redirects here. For other uses, see D&B (disambiguation).

The Dun & Bradstreet Corporation (NYSE: DNB), headquartered in Short Hills, New Jersey, USA, is the leading provider of credit information on businesses and corporations. Often called just D&B, it is perhaps best known for its D-U-N-S (Data Universal Numbering System) identifiers assigned to over 100 million global companies. Among its major divisions are Risk Management Solutions, Sales and Marketing Solutions, Supply Management Solutions, and E-Business Solutions.

Principal customers include manufacturers and wholesalers, insurance companies, telcos, banks, and other credit and financial institutions. Revenues in 2005 were $1.443 billion.

Contents

[edit] History

D&B's history dates to 1841, when Lewis Tappan (1788-1873) created a commercial credit service.

RG Dun (R.G. Dun Mercantile Agency) was incorporated by Tappan's grandson in 1859 and counted US presidents Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses S Grant, Grover Cleveland, and William McKinley among its credit reporters[citation needed]. Subscribership grew from 7,000 in the 1870s to 40,000 in the 1880s. Its reports covered over one million US businesses in 1900. Dun merged with The Bradstreet Companies (founded 1849), a former competitor, in 1933.

Past acquisitions include Moody's (1962, spun off in 2000); Funk and Wagnalls, encyclopedia publisher; AC Nielsen (1984, spun off in 1996); Intercontinental Marketing Services (IMS) (1988, spun off as Cognizant Corporation in 1996); R. H. Donnelley, directory compiler (1961, spun off in 1998); and Hoover's, Inc., a business information service (2003). Other acquisitions include a number of media interests, largely in the 1980s and 1990s [1]. In December of 2007, Dun & Bradstreet acquired AllBusiness[1] which offers more than five million pieces of business content including articles, periodicals, videos, blogs and legal forms and agreements.

An extensive timeline can be found at Dun & Bradstreet: Chronology.

D&B's information systems unit later led to the establishment of a company called Cognizant Technology Solutions(CTSH).

The most popular product of D&B is DNBi, a database that allows subscribers to search out credit-related information on other companies. This is frequently used by companies for the purpose of Risk Management.

D&B has recently established the Predictive Sciences and Analytics Center at Chennai, India.

[edit] Bibliography

On the early history of this company, see Born Losers: A History of Failure in America, by Scott A. Sandage (Harvard University Press, 2005), chapters 4-6.

[edit] D-U-N-S

D&B's D-U-N-S numbers are used to identify businesses around the world. They are required for many US federal government transactions, so are widely used and assigned. They are frequently used in corporate research[citation needed].

DMI entries provide legal and trade names, physical and mailing addresses, geographical descriptions, product and industry descriptors, sales and number of employees for three years and growth rates, as well as up to 40 vital statistics about each organization:

  • Corporate and competitive intelligence
  • Market research
  • Mailing lists
  • Trade name research
  • Merger and acquisition analysis
  • Industry statistics
  • Telemarketing lists
  • New product development
  • Corporate family trees

(Adapted from DBUS - Dun & Bradstreet US Duns Market Identifiers)

[edit] Company

On January, 29, 2008 D&B announced a realignment which would result in the elimination of redundant business functions and include a round of layoffs.


[edit] The Age / Dun & Bradstreet Best Business of the Year award

The Age and Dun & Bradstreet annually award an Australian business the title of 'Best Business of the Year'. On November 9th 2007, Beacon Lighting, an Australian lighting retailer won the award. Pronto Software, an Australian software developer, won the award in 2006.


[edit] See also

[edit] DUNS Number and Electronic Messages

+4 are used in electronic messages as identifiers for locations. See, for example, RosettaNet.

[edit] External links

v • d • e
Spinoffs of Dun & Bradstreet