GENIOS announces further Workshops for 2007

GENIOS has recently issued details of a further round of their "Tipps and Tricks" Workshops. There are two categories of Workshops. The first category "Tipps and Tricks für die Recherche" involves improving database research techniques whereas the second category, "Tipps and Tricks für Firmen-, Markt-, Brancheninformationen" focuses on specialist subject areas, one of them being company information. For further details visit GENIOS / Workshops .

On the subject of training, if the information providers send us details of their training programmes the Editorial Team would be only too glad to post them on the weblog. Also given the European focus of the ECFI Buyer's Guide we would like to hear of training sessions being planned for some of the international events, such as the forthcoming Book Fair in Frankfurt/Main on 10-14th October or the Online Information 2007 exhibition in London on 4-6th December.

How to become an author on the weblog

Thanks for the step-by-step instructions on how to become an author on the ECFI Buyer's Guide weblog. As you can see from this posting I made it and it works! Nevertheless, there are two points on which I would be grateful for some further clarification. Firstly, now that I am a "Google Account holder" what else can I do with it? Secondly, during the Google Account sign up process I stumbled (more than once) over the Word Verification requirement. What is that all about?

Alacra launches Alacra Wiki

Alacra one of the company information providers listed in the ECFI Buyer's Guide has launched a Web 2.0 application Alacra Wiki. See http://www.alacrawiki.com for more details. According to the introduction,

"The Alacra Wiki is a guide to business information companies, publishers and databases. Anyone can contribute, but you must create an account in order to do so. Marketing materials, product reviews, product announcements and executive bios are all welcome."

ECFI Buyer's Guide assisted by an Expert Advisory Panel

The company financial information domain is a difficult and challenging area to work in. Although there are plethora of EU directives each of them trying to coax us onto to some sort of convergence path, different legal forms of doing business, different languages as well as attitudes to information disclosure, all conspire to make company financial information one of the most complex areas in the field of business information.

As we are now nearing the publication date for the European Company Financial Information - A Buyer's Guide the Editorial Team would like to extend a special vote of thanks to the Expert Advisory Panel that helped us navigate our way through this difficult terrain. Representing information users in the banking, financial and insurance sectors the Expert Advisory Panel consists of information professionals from the United Kingdom, France and Germany. We look forward to introducing the Experts to the forum in the forthcoming weeks.

Michael Fanning

European Company Financial Information - A Buyer's Guide

Welcome to the weblog of the European Company Financial Information - Buyer's Guide.

The European company financial information market is one of the most important sectors for business information professionals, credit and finance professionals, and researchers but the market is full of similar competing services and tracking down and comparing services can be a costly and time consuming business for buyers of this information.

Now buyers will have access to the information they need to support their buying decisions in one place with the launch of European Company Financial Information (ECFI) - A Buyer’s Guide from IRN Research (in association with Online Consultants International). The ECFI Buyer's Guide will also be a useful source of independent competitor information for suppliers to the business and credit information industries.

The ECFI Buyer's Guide has detailed profiles of 39 company financial information services in Europe and covers pan-European sources plus sources focusing on the UK, France, and Germany. Alongside the profiles are spreadsheets allowing for quick comparisons of services plus an alphabetical index of products, services, and brands. Services included in the initial launch of the ECFI Buyer's Guide are:

Pan-European Providers:
Alacra, Bureau van Dijk, Capital IQ, D&B, European Business Register, Experian, Factiva, Graydon, Hoover’s, LexisNexis, OneSource, Perfect Information, Reuters, Skyminder, Thomson, World Box

UK Providers:
7 Side, Companies House, Creditsafe, Equifax, First Report, Hemscott, ICC, Jordans, Risk Disk, RM Online

French Providers:
BIL/D&B (Altares), Coface Services, Euridile, Infobilan, Infogreffe, Kbis-express, Societe.com

German Providers:
Bundesanzeiger, BÜRGEL, Creditreform, D&B Deutschland, GENIOS, Hoppenstedt

There are also important changes occurring across Europe in the way company information is being collected and accessed which should help users to find relevant data. More documents are being filed electronically and, in specific countries, new legislation is improving company transparency and access to company information. For example, in Germany from 1st January 2007, company data is being collected centrally for the first time and being made generally accessible under a newly created Central Company Register (www.unternehmensregister.de). Also, the annual company financial statements (Jahresabschlüsse) are being collected, stored and published centrally by the electronic Federal Gazette (elektronische Bundesanzeiger) and no longer by local courts.

This weblog has been created to give readers and interested parties an opportunity to help develop the issues in what is one of the fastest changing information markets.

We hope the weblog is useful and we look forward to hearing from you!

Michael Fanning