Dun & Bradstreet

Dun & Bradstreet

Type	Public
Traded as	NYSE: DNB S&P 500 Component
Founded	New York City, New York 1841
Headquarters	Short Hills, New Jersey, U.S.
Key people	Robert Carrigan, Chairman & CEO
Products	Business information, information technology, services, research, software
Revenue	US$ 1,655.2 million (2013) [1] US$ 1,663.0 million (2012) [1]
Operating income	US$ 437.1 million (2013) [1] US$ 432.1 million (2012) [1]
Net income	US$ 258.5 million (2013) [1] US$ 295.5 million (2012) [1]
Total assets	US$ 1,890.3 million (2013) [2] US$ 1,991.8 million (2012) [1]
Total equity	US$ -1,042.3 million (2013) [2] US$ -1,014.3 million (2012) [2]
Number of employees	4,600 (2012)[3]
Website	www.dnb.com

Dun & Bradstreet, Inc. (NYSE: DNB) is an American public company headquartered in Short Hills, a community in Millburn, New Jersey, US^[4] that provides commercial data to businesses on credit history, business-to-business sales and marketing, counterparty risk exposure, supply chain management, lead scoring and social identity matching.^[5] Often referred to as D&B, the company’s database contains information on more than 235 million companies across 200 countries worldwide.^[3] Dun & Bradstreet has been listed on the Fortune 500 and was one of the first companies to be publicly traded on the New York Stock Exchange.^[6][7]

History

1800s

Dun & Bradstreet traces its history back to July 20, 1841, with the formation of The Mercantile Agency in New York City by Lewis Tappan, later called R.G. Dun & Company.^[8] Recognizing the need for a centralized credit reporting system, Tappan formed the company to create a network of correspondents who would provide reliable, objective credit information to subscribers.^[9] As an advocate for civil rights, Tappan used his abolitionist connections to expand and update the company’s credit information.^[10] In spite of accusations for invading personal privacy, by 1844 the Mercantile Agency had over 280 clients. The agency continued to expand allowing offices to open in Boston, Philadelphia, and Baltimore. By 1849, Tappan retired, allowing Benjamin Douglass to take over the booming business.

In 1859, Douglass would transfer the company over to Robert Graham Dun, who would immediately change the firm’s name to R.G. Dun & Company.^[11] Over the next 40 years, Graham Dun continued to expand the business across international boundaries.

1900s

In 1933, Dun merged with competitor, John M. Bradstreet to form today's Dun & Bradstreet.^[12] The merger was engineered by Dun's CEO Arthur Whiteside.^[13] Whiteside's successor, J. Wilson Newman, worked to increase Duns range of products and services and expanded dramatically during the 1960s by engineering ways to apply new technologies to evolving operations.^[13] The Data Universal Numbering System (DUNS) was invented in 1962.^[14] In the late nineties, the company spun off ACNielsen (1996),^[15] Cognizant Technology Solutions (1996),^[16] and Moody's (1999)^[17]

2000s

On February 5, 2003, Dun & Bradstreet restated prior period results to correct timing errors in the recognition of some of the revenue associated with 14 of the Company's 200+ products, after a review of its revenue recognition from 1997 through 2002.^[18] In August 2010, Dun & Bradstreet spun off and sold their credit monitoring and management business to a newly formed company, Dun & Bradstreet Credibility Corp.^[19] In 2012, the company spun off AllBusiness.com.^[20]

Operations

Dun & Bradstreet maintains a database of over 240 million companies globally^[3] and over 100 million professional contact names using a variety of sources including public records, trade references, telco providers, telephone interviews, print, digital and trade publications, among others.^[21] The company derives revenues through subscriptions as well as pay-per-business report, and to a smaller extent, third-party licensing agreements. Additional revenue is derived from business subsidiaries including Hoover's.^[22]

Products and services

Dun & Bradstreet products and services fall under three main categories: finance solutions (credit and risk management), operations solutions (supply chain management) and sales and marketing solutions (Hoover's, lead generation, API-integrated corporate, social media and third-party information and DaaS tools).^[5][23]

Risk management products include the Business Information Report, Comprehensive Report, D&B Direct and the DNBi platform, often offered to listed participants as a way to improve their rating. These solutions provide current and historical business information primarily used for third party marketing.^[24]

Sales and marketing products such as the DUNS Market Identifier database, Optimizer, D&B 360 and D&B Professional Contacts provide sales and marketing professionals with business data for both prospecting and CRM activity. In the DNBi platform customers can view ECF reports, decision based on data, view alerts.^[25][26]

Dun & Bradstreet also owns the business research corporation Hoover's.^[27]

International branches

Dun & Bradstreet has offices in five continents – North and South America, Australia, Asia and Europe.^[28] The company has had offices in Australia since 1887, Mexico since 1896, New Zealand since 1903, Argentina since 1911, Venezuela since 1920, Brazil since 1933 and Peru since 1981. The company’s core office locations are in the US and Canada, Ireland, the UK, the Netherlands, Taiwan, China, Hong Kong, Brazil and Australia.^[21][29] It has several offices in India as well, with its head office in Mumbai.^[30]

References

External links

• www.dnb.com Official Corporate website
• Dun & Bradstreet Corporation Records at Baker Library Historical Collections, Harvard Business School
• Dun & Bradstreet companies grouped at OpenCorporates