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Recently we received a letter from Dun & Bradstreet asking us to update our profile with them. Based on the information we received, they position themselves akin to Equifax, TransUnion, or Experian for the personal credit rating. How useful is the D&B credit rating on the business level? |
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Waste of your time. D&B makes money off selling your information. I have run ops for 15 years and 6 companies. Been asked for my D&B maybe 3 times. Moment you "update" your information, they will spam you as bad as BBB. Dinosaurs. |
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The utility of D&B depends on your business. If you are a tech startup in Silicon Valley odds are you will never have a use for D&B. However, if you are a startup in the DC area planning on doing business with the federal government, you will need D&B. The federal government requires all companies doing business with it to obtain a DUNS number (an ID number provided by D&B). If you want to do business with the federal government you will have to "get in bed" with D&B - there is no way around that. Then there are those startups that fall somewhere inbetween these two extremes.
As far as the D&B credit rating, it's useless. Most entities will make their own assessment of your company's credit worthiness. On top of that, as a startup, your personal credit rating and your business credit rating are intimately connected. We received the same letter you received (or a similar one) from D&B. It stated:
What they don't tell you is that as a startup with no credit history this is already happening. Most creditors will require that someone (usually an owner) personally guarantee the debt. This means that if the business can't repay the debt, the creditors can come after that person for the balance. You will be "personally responsible for any payments your company is not able to make" whether you pay for a D&B credit rating or not. |
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