Dear all,
Following questions that I have received from several NOF projects, I
thought it might be worth sharing locations for sources of financial
information on suppliers.
As part of the standard process for assessing and selecting suppliers, NOF
projects will obviously be checking for the financial
longevity/strength/suitability of suppliers. Whilst consultancies like
ourselves will have specialised tools for such purposes, it is sometimes
difficult for culture-sector organisations to establish their own accurate
information. Some potential sources of this information follow, most of
which offer some information for free and some at a cost:
http://www.companieshouse.gov.uk/
The home page for Companies House, provides basic name/address listings and
status for free; reports and accounts can be downloaded at a cost.
Your local Business Link will usually have an information team who can
provide tailored reports (usually at a quite reasonable price). The
following link will take you to a searchable directory of local Business
Links:
http://www.businesslink.org/cgi-bin/bv1/index.jsp?urlid=8
The Business Links may also be able to review sole traders, as most credit
referencing/business scoring agencies will not store information on such
businesses/individuals.
Finally, a less "official", but potentially effective service is
http://www.192.com, which provides a range of personal and business
services. The range of information here is broad (and actually quite scary -
they outsourced the typing-in of the entire UK electoral roll and phone
books to 5,000 Chinese typists - there's a digitisation project for you!).
As an aside, if you are concerned about your own data privacy, check out
http://www.192.com/privacypolicy.cfm# - you have the ability to remove
yourself from their lists and I would recommend doing so as it possible on
this service to pull up anyone's details registered on the electoral roll,
get a map of their location and even get an aerial photo of their house!
There was some coverage on this lately when Posh Spice and Mr Beckham tried
unsuccessfully to sue them for this reason.
Regards
Chris Meaney (AIMC)
Managing Director
========================================================================
Harvard Consultancy Services Ltd, Bexin House, 2/3 St. Andrews Place
Southover Road, Lewes, East Sussex, BN7 1UP
Tel: 01273 897517, Fax: 01273 471929, E-Mail: [log in to unmask]
Registered in England & Wales no. 3766540
Registered Office: 50 Harvard Close, Malling, Lewes, East Sussex, BN7 2EJ.
|