CREDIT WHERE DUE
When Old School Is Like Gold
While technology has vastly improved the art of credit checking, an over-reliance on just one credit-check service is risky. BY NAT McCALL
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magine you’re just starting your work from multiple suppliers can be expensive that were once the law of the land. With week, and it promises to be a very busy and might be cost-prohibitive due to the the advances in reporting, a lot of these one. No sooner have you hung up your budget or size of a company. How then techniques fell by the wayside. Maintaining coat than there’s an urgent request to set do you get multiple data points without contacts with your trade groups and up a new customer. You open your browser breaking the bank? How do you implement vendors will often alert you to issues before to perform a credit check and upon clicking redundancies? they show up in monthly reporting. Preparation for the next phase of COVIDthe bookmark, you get ... NOTHING. An easy and cost-effective way to 19, or another type of crisis, is likely to result Such was the case for credit professionals broaden your reporting capability is to in old-school-meets-new-school practices. recently when they logged into a major go through trade partners. The National Credit professionals need to embrace provider. Emails urgently seeking both ways of getting information, as information from the provider navigation will be as much about art as went unanswered. Finally, the it is about technology. company released information late There has never been a more in the day. They had taken everyimportant time to communicate with thing offline due to a detected sales teams about customers, soliciting intrusion. word-on-the-street information. Calls Imagine the disruption to your or emails to customers, even if it’s just business if you were reliant on a to touch base, are also essential. single source of credit that went LinkedIn, trade groups (particularly offline for a week, months or ones that are industry-specific), trade forever. shows and good old-fashioned contacts If you’re reading this column, will be needed to help make decisions I probably don’t need to tell you that could one day mitigate or prevent that in today’s fast-paced world, There has never been a more important a loss. As offices reopen, networking automation of credit reporting and time to communicate with sales teams needs to occur like it never has before. decisioning has become the norm. about customers, soliciting word-on-theAnalytics and data streams are Technology greatly improves our awesome tools for forecasting and ability to digest and process lots street information. predictions. However, they rely of information quickly, decrease on someone to model them based on decision time and increase speed to market. Association of Credit Management and intelligence provided by people. There is COVID-19 revealed what an unseen other groups often have discounted a very real possibility that companies that threat can do to businesses and created a subscriptions or a la carte reports that can have survived thus far will not make it ripple effect that impacted every aspect of be pulled from major providers like Dun through a resurgence or may be impacted life. “Adapt or perish” quickly became the & Bradstreet and Experian. You may by breaks in their supply chain. rallying cry as industries and their credit already be part of an organization that can Be prepared. Seek out and pay attention professionals attempted to recover and navi- provide these reports with media-focused to your peers across gate the ever-evolving pandemic situation. intelligence. your industry and If credit professionals have learned Making BCCA’s Media Whys service a anything from COVID-19, it’s that we part of our tool kit is a cost-effective way to ones that interface need to plan for the worst and hope for the add a second or third source of information with it. As a result, you may see a best. that also has the benefit of industry-spepotential problem on “Two is one, and one is none” is a saying cific knowledge that might otherwise be the horizon before it that resonates in many people’s lives. It missing. looms large. means that you always have more than In addition to multiple reporting one of whatever you need so that you’re agencies, many companies have chosen Nat McCall is the senior manager, never without. That certainly applies to to go old school. They rely more heavily U.S. credit and collections, at Discovery credit-check providers. on reference requests, calls to peers, trade Communications. He can be reached at nat_mccall@discovery.com or (865) 985-7787. Obviously, subscription-based services group memberships and meetings – options
8 The Financial Manager • November/December 2021
