This presentation is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License Keeping Good Company: quality business information on the web UKeiG, UWE, Bristol Karen Blakeman, 8 th September 2011 [email protected]o.uk twitter.com/ karenblakeman http:// www.rba.co.uk/ Business Sources www.rba.co.uk/source s/ Presentation available at: http:// www.rba.co.uk/bi/
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Keeping Good Company: quality business information on the web
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This presentation is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License
Keeping Good Company: quality business information on the web
UKeiG, UWE, Bristol Karen Blakeman, 8th September 2011
• Follow me on your computer as we go through the sites or wait until the practical sessions – I leave it to you to decide (presentation at http://www.rba.co.uk/bi/ )
• Sites that are mentioned (and more) are at http://www.rba.co.uk/sources/
• Business Information Sources: A Beginner's Guide (Paperback) by Christine O'Hare
Publisher: Facet Publishing (18 Mar 2007)
ISBN-10:1856046036
ISBN-13: 978-1856046039
• Much of the content is still relevant
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Why not just Google for business information?
• Content of many business resources not searched by Google, Bing etc.– information held in databases
– password protected even if free
– priced and subscription services
• Best source of information may be way down your results list
• Google personalises and “tailors” content depending on your location, computer, browser, past searches, your social network, what you had for breakfast.... and anything else it can think of to mess up your results!
• More effective to go direct to relevant starting points and known sites
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Some real enquiries
• I‘m involved in a foreign merger with a take-over of an American company called [name deleted] by a Japanese company. The regulators dealing with the merger are called Eastern Equity Division. They have told me that before I can receive my funds for the sale of the shares I need to pay first a 28% offshore withholding tax. Is this correct in a take over situation? thanks.
• Everything on fish and chip shops in Reading and surrounding area. Location of premises, photos of the neighbouring premises and location, what’s on their menu, prices charged by each one, amount of traffic through the door by day and time slot – and I need it today
• Having double glazing installed. Which companies are likely to be still in business over the next couple of months
• TV advertising spend forecasts up until 2015 for UK, France and Germany
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Free vs. Fee
Free
• Company information not comprehensive, search for companies by name/number one at a time
• Anonymous statistics, total market/industry figures
• Current news - free text searching, many key industry publications not free, difficult to focus search
• May be limited in coverage, time span
Fee
• Full company accounts, historical data, search by multiple criteria, analysis and report features
• Detailed market share by company name, product/brand
• Indexed content, easier to search for historical information by event type, more flexible search and print options
• More likely to be comprehensive and have more extensive archives
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Social media and professional networks
• Part of the web, included in search, infiltrated most of the digital world
• Where people and organisations share, discuss, comment and ask questions
• It is where the conversations are happening
• It is where a lot of marketing takes place
• Used for research, competitor intelligence, reputation monitoring
• Google and Bing automatically incorporate social and professional networks, blogs, Twitter etc in results
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General starting points
• Business Sources on the Net http://www.rba.co.uk/sources/
• BL - Business Essentials on the Web – http://bl-business-essentials.wikispaces.com/
– “a one-stop shop for website listings for entrepreneurs and SMEs, covering topics such as ‘business planning’, ‘grants and finance’, ‘marketing and PR’ as well as industry specific pages.”
• SCOTBIS (Scottish Business Information Service) http://scotbis.nls.uk/
• Biznar – federated search http://biznar.com/
• FITA http://www.fita.org (links do not seem to be checked so some old entries no longer work)
• Alacrawiki Industry Spotlights (but does not seem to be updated any more) http://www.alacrawiki.com/
• Some of the main changes:– memorandum of association now only needs to state that the
founders of the company wish to form a limited company
– directors no longer need to apply to withhold their private address, for example if they believe they may be targeted by activists. Can now choose to supply a “service address”
– requirement to have a company secretary removed
• UK Companies House– http://www.companieshouse.gov.uk/
– details of registration and filing requirements
– examples of documents
– WebCHeck - search for companies for free, some information free, accounts and other documents priced
• Must fulfil at least two of the following conditions to qualify
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• Exemptions not available to public companies, banking, insurance or shipping companies
Small Medium
Turnover not exceeding £6.5m £25.9m
Assets/balance sheet not exceeding
£3.26m £12.9m
Average number of employees 50 250
Total exemption
• “Total exemption small” means that a company is qualified to trade as a "small company" and therefore can submit abbreviated accounts and does not need to have the accounts audited
• “Total exemption full” means that the company is exempt but that it has chosen to file full accounts
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UK filing requirements
Small companies
Medium companies
Large companies
Balance sheet Abbreviated balance sheet with notes
Full balance sheet
Full balance sheet signed by a Director
Profit and loss Not required Abbreviated profit and loss account
Full profit and loss account
Turnover Not required Not required Required
Auditor report Special auditor report if required
Special auditor report
Required and signed by an auditor
Director report Not required Required Required and signed by an officer of the company
Notes to the accounts
Not required Required Required
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• UK Companies House - Webcheck– http://www.companies-house.gov.uk/
– free, subscription, and document pay per view options
• Make sure you have the right person!– Tom Bloggs director of Tom Bloggs Ltd may not be the same as
Tom Bloggs listed at Companies House
– Tom Bloggs director of Tom Bloggs Ltd may be listed as Thomas Bloggs.
– Tom Bloggs listed as a director at Companies House could be someone completely different
• Multiple IDs for the same directory– quite common and does not denote anything untoward
– Companies House has tried to amalgamate IDs but not managed it completely
• Search on a director can reveal unusual patterns e.g. the setting up of a new company a few weeks or days before the current company goes into liquidation
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Company documents
• May need to look at original companies house documents– cost £1 each and there
can be lots of them, need to decide which ones you really need
• Credit reports may be more useful, usually include any CCJs (County Court Judgments)
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County Court Judgments (CCJ)
• Claims made against an organisation or individual by another organisation or individual
– for example failure to pay an invoice
– failure to complete work despite having been made
• If a county court judgment is paid in full within one month of the judgment date it is removed from the register
• If settled after one month the claim is marked as “satisfied” and stays on the register for 6 years
• Registry Trust - CCJs, court orders & fines
– http://www.trustonline.org.uk/
• London Gazette – insolvency data, public notices
• Switzerland– only banks, insurance companies and companies traded on the
Swiss stock exchange are required to provide financial statements
• Cayman Islands– “The Registrar of Companies can only release the name and
type of company, its date of registration, the address of the registered office and the company’s status. Disclosing any other information is prohibited unless requested by a law enforcement agency.”
• British Virgin Islands– “A company is not required to file its register of directors, register
of members, register of charges or an annual return with the BVI Registrar of Corporate Affairs.”
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Databases for information on smaller companies
• Confirm contact details using telephone directories
– http://www.teldir.com/
• BvD Mint Free Directory search
– http://www.bvdinfo.com/
– only basic contact details free of charge, additional information priced
• Directories such as
– Applegate http://www.applegate.co.uk/
– Europages http://www.europages.com/
– solusource http://www.solusource.com/
– Kompass http://www.kompass.com/
– see also the list of directories at “Company and Telephone Directories” http://www.rba.co.uk/sources/directs.htm
• When carrying out research often have to use data from different sources
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Bits and pieces from everywhere?
• Is there a problem?• Not necessarily but
– must be aware of the context• why and how was the original research conducted• what sources were used• when was the data gathered
– free resources may take information out of context• press releases and news articles focus on single issues• background and methodology often missing• may be several times removed from original research or data
collection
• Multiple free sources are often used to build a picture of a market piece by piece
• Not comparing like with like
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Statistics and industry data
• Use advanced search options to limit your search to file types or format:
– pdf or doc/docx for government or industry/market reports
– xls/xlsx for data and statistics
– ppt /pptx or pdf for presentations
• Search in both Google and Bing for a comprehensive search
• Docjax – http://www.docjax.com
– searches PDF, PPT, DOC, XLS in Yahoo/Bing and Google
• Looking for experts on a topic, presentations, general background on a subject, information on an organisation?
Guardian data store - data journalism and data visualization http://www.guardian.co.uk/dataData and analysis on topics that are in the newsLinks to the original datasets are provided
• geographical location of stories, people, networks
• use as a starting point for in depth research
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Priced services
• The Times and Sunday Times– http://www.thetimes.co.uk/ http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/ – £1/day or £2/week
• Financial Times (priced for full access)– http://www.ft.com/ – £3.79/week for standard subscription– £5.49/week for premium subscription (includes mobile news reader
& Lex)
• LexisNexis– http://www.lexisnexis.com/ – subscription service, prices on application
• Factiva– http://www.factiva.com/ – subscription service, prices on application– also a pay as you go option
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Alerts
• Email alerts still available on a few news sites and services• RSS now more common
– use a reader such as Google Reader, RSS reader option in Outlook 2007 and later
– pull them into iGoogle, My Yahoo or Netvibes.com
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Blogs and Twitter
• Many experts, academics, researchers, industry gurus have
active blogs
• Great way to tap into expert knowledge especially with new
and innovative technologies and industries
• Essential for competitive intelligence and reputation
monitoring
• But Twitter limited to current data & selected networks
• Twitter up to the minute but skewed view of what is happening
• Blogs – http://www.google.com/blogsearch/ or use the Blogs option in the menu on the left hand side of your results page
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Topsy.com – Web “realtime” search
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SocialMention.com (rather erratic and slow but interesting)
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whostalkin.com
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Blogpulse.com – ‘Trend this’
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What can go wrong?
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What can go wrong?
• iPhone 4 to be recalled: it’s true – the Daily Mail says so– http://www.rba.co.uk/wordpress/2010/06/27/iphone-4-to-be-
recalled-its-true-the-daily-mail-says-so/
• Phil Bradley's weblog: Incompetent Journalists Richard Ashmore and Barbara Ellen– http://philbradley.typepad.com/phil_bradleys_weblog/2010/06/