“‘Know your customer" is a mantra that is drilled into sales and business professionals everywhere, but the rate of change in the market and the volume of information, means that even the most diligent are likely to be unprepared when they make their next sales call,” says Alan Scott, chief marketing officer at Factiva.

One potentially useful tool that can provide more information on your customers are the D&B profiles for over 400,000 private UK-based companies and 1.4 million executives that are now available in Factiva SalesWorks and Factiva Companies & Executives.

The new content includes private UK companies with total assets of at least 50,000 pounds Sterling or more than 25 employees. Now, detailed Company Snapshots including key financial data such as number of employees and annual sales, employee and sales growth, net worth, net income and profit margin in local currency are available. Company records also include deeper financial data including the last five years of the balance Sheet, income statement (profit & loss account) and cash flow as well as key ratios for the last three years.

While much of this information has been available for larger companies on the net, it is a scarcer for smaller privately held companies.

The best way of using some of this information we found was in being able to quickly find a list of prospective customers in a geographic area. Within a few minutes we were able to obtain a complete list of all the advertising agencies in the Manchester area linked by size. We were then able to drill down into these companies in more detail.

The new content includes private UK companies with total assets of at least 50,000 pounds Sterling or more than 25 employees. Now, detailed Company Snapshots including key financial data such as number of employees and annual sales, employee and sales growth, net worth, net income and profit margin in local currency are available. Company records also include deeper financial data including the last five years of the balance Sheet, income statement (profit & loss account) and cash flow as well as key ratios for the last three years.

While much of this information has been available for larger companies on the net, it is a scarcer for smaller privately held companies.

The best way of using some of this information we found was in being able to quickly find a list of prospective customers in a geographic area. Within a few minutes we were able to obtain a complete list of all the advertising agencies in the Manchester area linked by size. We were then able to drill down into these companies in more detail.

The main downside of Factiva is that much of the information, compiled from returns to Companies House, provides information that is of limited use to a sales person – and for smaller companies much of the key information does not exist. For example a list of the directors of the company does not provide you with a great deal of information about, say, who orders printing supplies in the company. That said, Factiva could provide an interesting extra insight into your customers.

www.factiva.com/products/salesworks/