Information is transforming our economy, society and the business landscape in ways that we cannot fully comprehend or realize. Information affects decision-making, behavioral traits, and outcomes, and businesses need solutions that add value to their company information to find, analyze and compare companies across the globe – and work more efficiently.
Bureau van Dijk (BvD) is one such company meeting this need with its various solutions. It provides the richest, most reliable private company information in the market to companies asking risk-related questions. It helps its vast customer base to make better decisions and increase efficiency. The Amsterdam-based company distributes financial information and private company datasets of 247 million companies. Its solutions add value and make a tangible impact on the clients’ businesses. BvD provides them with access to precise, standardized information on private companies, as well as corporate structures that they would need to confidently and quickly make the most informed decisions possible. The company’s product range combines data from regulatory and other sources, including 160 information partners. Its flexible software allows users to manipulate data for a range of research needs and applications. BvD was acquired by Moody’s Analytics in 2017 and boasts a significant global presence with more than 30 offices worldwide.
Helping Businesses Make Better Decisions for Decades
Founded in 1991, BvD over the years has built partnerships with more than 160 mostly independent information providers, addressing a broad range of business challenges, thanks to its innovative platform, Orbis, that connects customers with data. BvD’s solutions support areas such as credit analysis, investment research, tax risk, transfer pricing, compliance and third-party due diligence needs of financial institutions, corporations, professional services firms and governmental authorities worldwide.
And, as well as these, Procurement is an important area for BvD. The firm captures and treats private company information for better decision-making and increased efficiency, making it ideally suited to help procurement professionals.
BvD brings supplier data ‘to life’ by enriching it and presenting it in simple dashboards. Hence, users can interpret it quickly and work more efficiently. They use it to mitigate against financial and reputational risk, as well as some regulatory risks.
It’s All about Time, Care and Attention
Since its inception, BvD’s journey has always been one of gradually and painstakingly building up coverage of private companies from around the world. This takes time, care and attention, and BvD is continuing on that journey for the foreseeable future, although the company’s methods have evolved with time and will continue to do so in future.
Likewise, its customers’ interests are also changing, with corporate ownership becoming increasingly important. Users want their information to be less “siloed”. BvD recognizes this and does what it can to create links between different types of information. And this ties in with the efforts to improve technology that allow its users to blend their information with BvD’s.
Simplifying Users’ Supplier Selection Screening Processes
BvD’s solutions simplify its users’ supplier selection and screening processes. The company’s flagship platform, Orbis, is the world’s most powerful comparable data resource on private companies. It holds information of 247 million private companies worldwide. Orbis enables users to identify and validate companies, so they know that they are assessing the right entities. Information that the platform carries includes company financials, financial strength indicators, details of managers and directors, and extensive corporate ownership structures.
Apart from Orbis, BvD has created Compliance Catalyst – a centralized, automated platform for risk assessment. This allows users to combine their supplier data with the company information on Orbis. Among other things, it can be used to monitor changes to suppliers; screen suppliers against sanctions lists for financial compliance; access potential suppliers against users’ benchmarks; and check suppliers against adverse media and news.
Orbis and Compliance Catalyst are used together to manage users’ workflows and decision-making processes. This brings greater understanding of their supplier portfolio, including group spend analysis; supplier dependency; distribution of supplier bases by location, size or financials; and the latest developments on suppliers, such as adverse news, ownership, and management.
Heading into the Future
Data – some of it open-source – have gradually become more digitally available and more transparent. Going forward, data across the internet will in many cases be unstructured. Technologies most likely to emerge in the procurement space to deal with these issues are AI and automation. BvD is likely to use elements of this technology to integrate data, add value and become users’ central point for data discovery and better due diligence across international borders.
Moving forward, BvD will carry on trying to make customers’ lives easier. Its vision involves all companies, institutions and public bodies around the world using BvD as their primary source of information. Its mission is to make customers more successful by providing them with company solutions that help improve their efficiency, grow their revenues and mitigate their risk. And this very much applies to procurement specialists. Whether through the scope and quality of its data, the number of data sources it uses or the accessibility and power of its functionality, all of which will continue to evolve along with BvD.