By the very nature of our experience and the network of trusted partners developed over many years, we’re asked on a daily basis to help source the best available data or information from the UK and around the globe. Sadly, many purveyors of data worry only about their own sales targets not about yours.
Let’s look at some numbers for a client of Corporate CPR with 200 active customers.
| Company | Credit Agency A Credit Limit | Credit Agency A Credit Score | Credit Agency B Credit Limit | CreditAgency B Credit Score | Credit Agency C Credit Limit | Credit Agency C Credit Score |
| Engineering Company Ltd | £60,750 | 89 | £34,500 | 70 | £20,000 | 80 |
| Builders’ Merchant Ltd | £14,700 | 72 | £12,000 | 69 | £5,000 | 61 |
| Drywall Business Ltd | £13,500 | 96 | £24,500 | 91 | £6,200 | 74 |
| Decorating Company Ltd | £3,500 | 79 | £1,350 | 57 | £980 | 24 |
| Total Credit Limits and average scores | £92,450 | 84 | £72,350 | 72 | £32,180 | 60 |
| Cost of 200 UK reports | £5,000 | £3,000 | £1,000 | |||
| Net cost of data | £87,450 | £69,350 | £31,180 | |||
| Notional Cost over 200 customers | £4,622,500 | £3,617,500 | £1,609,000 |
The credit values are deliberately low – no-one should be extending large credit exposures using credit agency recommendations. It’s your money at stake not theirs – don’t ever forget that.
Of course, we’ve revealed the names of neither the businesses, nor the agencies, in the table above. Suffice to say, the data is real.
What does the table reveal?
Spend £5,000 on reports with the first agency – ouch, that’s five times the amount of agency C, so a huge cost difference of £4,000.
But the assessments of the first agency would support sales to the 200 customers that exceed the recommendations of agency C by a staggering £3,000,000. Boy, would the new business sales team have to work hard to cover that potential gap when they might be better focused on upselling to the existing base with credit headroom available.
If you have 2,000 customers – “do the math” – as they say.