The Dun & Bradstreet Corporation is the world’s leading source of
commercial information and insight on businesses, enabling customers to Decide
with Confidence® for over 166 years. Our global commercial database contains
more than 125 million business records. The database is enhanced by our proprietary
DUNSRight® Quality Process, which provides our customers with quality business
information. This quality information is the foundation of our global solutions
that customers rely on to make critical business decisions.
We provide customers with four solution sets, which meet a diverse set of customer
needs globally. Customers use our Risk Management Solutions™ to mitigate
credit risk, increase cash flow and drive increased profitability; our Sales
& Marketing Solutions™ to increase revenue from new and existing customers;
our E-Business Solutions™ to convert prospects into clients faster by
enabling business professionals to research companies, executives and industries;
and our Supply Management Solutions™ to increase cash by generating ongoing
savings from our customers’ suppliers and by protecting our customers
from serious financial, operational and regulatory risk.
Within the commercial insight market, we have identified three strategic stakes
to increase growth for the future. We continue to execute against these stakes,
which include:
• Growing our global Risk Management Solutions, which is our largest
solution set, by strengthening our data capabilities and by playing a larger
role in delivering predictive analytics and platforms to our customers;
• Growing our Sales and Marketing Solutions globally by focusing on
the higher growth space of commercial data integration; and
• Growing our Internet Solutions (“E-Business”) by continuing
to invest in Hoover’s, Inc. (“Hoover’s”) —our
online database solution that provides information on public and private companies,
their executives and industries—while also investing in new platforms
that will leverage and complement our Hoover’s offering.
In executing against these strategic stakes, we are focused on growing our
Risk Management Solutions, Sales and Marketing Solutions and E-Business Solutions
both organically—by investing in areas such as data and technology—and
by pursuing strategic acquisitions. We do not believe that our Supply Management
Solutions business will be a growth priority for us going forward.
Our Blueprint for Growth strategy relies on four core competitive advantages
that support our commitment to driving TSR and our aspiration to be the most
trusted source of commercial insight so our customers can decide with confidence.
These core competitive advantages include our:
• Trusted Brand;
• Financial Flexibility;
• Winning Culture; and
• DUNSRight Quality Process.
Our Customers
We believe that different size customers have different needs and require different
skill sets to service them. Accordingly, we have adopted a go-to-market sales
strategy that focuses on distinct groups categorized internally as large customers,
middle market customers and small market customers. Our large customers are
those having spend with us of $1.0 million or more, while our middle market
customers are those having spend with us of between $20,000 and $1.0 million
and our small market customers are those having spend with us of $20,000 or
less.
Competition
We are subject to highly competitive conditions in all aspects of our business.
A number of competitors are active in specific aspects of our business. However,
we believe no competitor offers our complete line of solutions or can match
our global data quality resulting from our DUNSRight Quality Process.
In the U.S., we are a market leader in our Risk Management Solutions business
in terms of market share and revenue, including revenue from sales of third-party
business credit information. We compete with our customers’ own internal
business practices by continually developing more efficient alternatives to
our customers’ risk management processes to capture more of their internal
spend. We also directly compete with a broad range of companies, including consumer
credit companies such as Equifax, Inc. and Experian Information Solutions, Inc.
(“Experian”), which have traditionally offered primarily consumer
information services, but now offer products that combine consumer information
with business information as a tool to help customers make credit decisions
with respect to small businesses.
We also compete in the U.S. with a broad range of companies offering solutions
similar to our Sales & Marketing Solutions and Supply Management Solutions
as well as our customers’ own purchasing departments. In our Sales &
Marketing Solutions business, our direct competitors include companies such
as Experian and infoUSA, Inc. (“infoUSA”). In our Supply Management
Solutions business, we directly compete with consulting firms, specialty data
providers and specialty software companies.
In our E-Business Solutions, Hoover’s competition varies based on the
size of the customer and the level of spending available for services such as
Hoover’s Online. On the high end of product pricing, Hoover’s Pro,
Hoover’s Pro Plus and Hoover’s Pro Premium products compete with
other business information providers such as infoUSA. On the lower end of product
pricing, our Hoover’s Lite solution mainly competes with advertising-supported
Websites and other free or low-priced information sources, such as Yahoo! Finance
and MarketWatch, Inc.
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