International identifier
An international identifier is a number of different size which comes above or beside the national identification number and helps to identify a company over several countries in the world.
The main tools used as international identifiers are : EasyNumber, DUNS number, International Suppliers Network, European Business Register, international Business Identifier Code (BIC/ISO 9362, a normalized code for trade, especially popular in banking area as the international Bank_code - also known as Bank Identifier Code, Bank International Code and SWIFT code),...
Practical applications
The use of international identifiers is relevant in a wide range of business functions:
- Financial Department:
- Consistent basis for risk assessment.
- Handling of corporate transparency issues.
- IT Department:
- Data access improvement: cross-base access, cross-base requests.
- Update of the different databases: cleaning of duplicates, address maintenance.
- Sales Department:
- Manage multi-channel sales activities.
- Address updating.
- Prospect targeting.
- Marketing Department:
- Access to up-to-date profile information.
- Removal of inactive companies.
- Basis for a portfolio analysis