Are you attending NACM’s Credit Congress at the Gaylord Texan June 10-13?  If so, we hope you will come by and see us in Booth #101.  Look for the large Experian sign—you can’t miss it. 

We have lots of exciting things going on.  Our product experts are hosting live demonstrations of BusinessIQ and providing real-world examples of how the solution can be customized to meet your specific needs.  While you’re at the booth, be sure to enter our raffle for a chance to win a summer barbecue package—and on Monday and Tuesday, be sure to enjoy the special treat we’ll be serving!

Our folks are excited and ready to speak with you about working smarter, not harder to manage your entire business credit portfolio.   

For more details about NACM and exhibit hall hours, visit — http://creditcongress.nacm.org/home-cc12.html

Last time we talked about how credit policies are like a plant grown from a seed. They need regular review and attention just like the plants in your garden to really bloom.

 A credit policy is simply a consistent guideline to follow when decisioning accounts, reviewing accounts, collecting and setting terms.

 Opening accounts is just the first step. Here are a couple of key items to consider in reviewing  accounts:

 How many of your approved accounts are paying you late?

• What is their average days beyond terms?
• How much credit have they been extended?
• What attributes of these late paying accounts can predict future payment behavior?

 I recently worked with a client to create an automated credit policy that consistently reviews accounts based on predictive credit attributes, public records and exception rules using the batch account review decisioning tools within BusinessIQ. The credit team now feels like they are proactively managing their accounts instead of just reacting to them.

 A solid credit policy not only focuses on opening accounts, but also on regular account review which can help you reduce your overall risk.

As the summer heats up many of us are looking to take a break to enjoy our favorite summer activities.   While this break is well deserved (and essential for maintaining our sanity) it’s important to remember that the discipline around our credit decisions can’t take a break.  New applications still come in the door, products must be shipped and services must be performed   

This summer I am spending much of my “office time” working on a new credit report.  It’s my hope this report will help drive more informed decisions while freeing up your time to enjoy a well deserved summer break.   For years I’ve heard . . .

•  Do you have a fraud check right on the credit report?
• Do you have a credit limit recommendation on your credit report?
• How did the credit score look six months ago?
• What’s the NAICS code for this business?

Well, I’m happy to report we’ve listened!  The BusinessIQ Premier Profile answers all of those questions in one spot.  The report provides information needed to assess credit risk as well as the information to perform background checks.   Take a look and let me know what you think.  Will this report help you make more informed business decisions?  Did we free some time up for you to hit the beach or enjoy another fun summer activity?

Summer vacations are in full swing and I can’t wait to spend some time at the beach with the family this summer. Since late payments and bad accounts never seem to take a vacation, I want to remind you of a couple of the tools we have available to help you manage your accounts.

1.      Register your accounts to be monitored and choose to be notified as events happen – everything from score changes, late payment warnings and public record updates.

2.      Run your accounts through a credit policy in batch format. This will provide consistent account review and give you the ability to act only upon those accounts with a decision or credit limit change.

3.      Last, but not least is regular account review though portfolio scoring.

Learn more about our account management tools – and hopefully regular account reviews can give you a vacation from bad accounts.

As a parent of two youngsters, it has dawned on me that managing the credit lifecycle is very similar to being a parent. In the beginning, whether it’s children or prospects, you’re doing everything you possibly can to research, learn, take care of and keep them out of harm’s way. As children age, similar to accounts, we tend to be more hands-off (teenagers and bad accounts prefer this approach), but both need managing/supervision. If things really go south, then there is the need for Collections or maybe boarding school, just kidding about the boarding school, but you get the picture. I don’t typically give parenting advice, but I am here to help you with your credit lifecycle needs.

1. Stay involved – regularly monitor and analyze your portfolio
2. Show some love to both your good and bad accounts – bad accounts need to be adjusted to reduce risk and good accounts might need more incentives to help them grow
3. Send the really bad accounts to Collections – it’s for everyone’s good

Learn more about our offerings – you’re on your own with the teenagers.

Doing business internationally is much simpler today than it was 10 or 20 years ago, but the need to mitigate risk while expanding globally has not changed.  That is why I’m so excited to launch our new international offerings through BusinessIQ .  We now provide access to a suite of products that provide global credit information on 225 countries.  The world’s not getting smaller —but information is getting closer through BusinessIQ.

 This is launch week, a crazy, yet exciting week in the life of a product manager.  If you’ve already logged on and accessed our international services, leave me a comment.  I would love to hear your feedback.

I’ve been on the road a lot these last few weeks visiting clients and prospects. While spending the night in the Dallas Fort Worth airport with storm warnings and getting stuck in Chicago wasn’t much fun, visiting and learning from clients/prospects always is. As the product manager for BusinessIQ, the information gleaned from these sessions has been critical in developing the product and continues to play a large role in the application’s evolution. We already have a busy Summer on tap with several product releases and enhancements planned.

Please keep the feedback coming. Click on the feedback link on the logged in BusinessIQ homepage and tell me what you like, what you don’t like and what you would like to see in the future. Together we can continue to develop and release the industry leading products you’ve come to expect from us here at Experian.

Southern hospitality continued today at NACM Credit Congress 2011 with a Dolly Parton impersonator who kicked off the morning with lots of energy and familiar tunes. The fun continued in the Super Session where critically acclaimed author, Joe Calloway focused on challenging assumptions and creating new ways to think competitively, improve constantly and act decisively – all good skills to have when protecting and growing your business.  Late morning, we were excited to host Joe in our booth where people got to meet him and get an autographed copy of his book, ‘Becoming  a Category of One.’ 

In the afternoon, we hosted an in-depth demo of BusinessIQ, our platform that combines all of the credit tools your credit department needs. The platform has been very successful since its launch last July, and the conversations we’re having with attendees about BusinessIQ have been great.

Tomorrow, Mary Kathryn Jarcy, one of our Senior Product Managers is speaking on how you can protect your company from credit fraud.  The session will cover fraud trends you should be on the lookout for and tips and tools on protecting your business. Find her tomorrow, Wednesday, May 25  at Educational Session 19054 from 10:30-12:00.

We’re live from Credit Congress 2011 and it’s hard to beat the Southern hospitality on display in Nashville.

Day one is in the books and we’re live on the floor for day two. There’s a lot of energy on display today with discussions about industry trends and new ways to manage today’s credit needs. Many exhibitors are highlighting new products and there is a general sense that the economy is improving with originations on the rise, but also a high demand for products that allow credit managers to manage their existing accounts. On display in the Experian booth is BusinessIQ and the new Premier Profile credit report. Combining solid payment, public record and demographic data along with Fraud detection, the easy-to-read Premier Profile is Experian’s version of Southern hospitality for credit managers.

Join us tomorrow in Nashville for an in-depth, live BusinessIQ demo at 1:00 CST.

I entered college during the [self-proclaimed] golden years of university education, which is to say shortly after the release of the movie Animal House.  This was a simpler time when the closest thing to a personal computer was the de rigueur TI “pocket” calculator- an outrageously expensive, battery operated plastic device twice the size of a juice box-too big to actually carry in your pocket.  I guess calling it a pouch calculator riled the brand police.  But it was a far easier to use than the mechanical slide rule that the old-school professors continued to carry and certainly more convenient than traipsing over to the basement of the Computer Center – where the Mainframe anchored an entire floor.  With little hype or fanfare, the pocket calculator ushered in a platform shift and even those mathematically challenged like me now had the power to multiply and divide on-demand and un-tethered from the grid.  Life was one big toga party. 

By the time I settled in a SERIOUS JOB, the modern era of computing had progressed to mid-range mini-computers and I found myself programming one, a sweet little HP3000 with (I swear this is true) a touch screen monitor, though the poor thing was still dumb as a box of rocks- truly a waste of a gesture-based interface.   Like Omigod!  Another platform shift slipped by, fer sure.

As the years rolled on and Moore’s Law drove the acceleration of just about everything, many more platform shifts cycled through in a blur of progress:  personal computing, the Internet, web browsers, and the World Wide Web, Google, the list goes on and the disruptive innovation proceeds relentlessly.   The shifts come so fast and frequently, surrounded by so much hype that we hardly blink or understand the implications.  Most recently there has been yet another shift, one with an ascendant quality:  Cloud Computing. 

In a 2008 The Economist article titled Let It Rise, author Ludwig Siegele explains the Cloud Computing phenomenon by way of an exquisite tweet-like history of computing:  “In the beginning computers were human.  Then they took the shape of metal boxes, filling entire rooms before becoming ever smaller and more widespread.  Now they are evaporating altogether and becoming accessible from anywhere.”   

 If Siegele’s description seems a tad ethereal and even immaterial, consider this:  you are in the Cloud whenever you use BusinessIQ.  That’s right, BusinessIQ is Cloud Computing, a business application that is delivered as a service using the Internet.  Your platform has shifted again, in a most powerful and advantageous way.