D&B (NYSE:DNB), the world's leading source of commercial insight on businesses, today announced the release of D&B DirectTM 2.0, the API solution providing enterprise-wide access to a broad range of business insight. With a unified web services platform, the addition of risk scores and ratings, fraud and compliance monitoring, digital and social intelligence and more, D&B Direct 2.0 dramatically improves an organization's ability to embed rich data and analytics in their business applications to drive better results. Delivering streaming business insight via the cloud, the solution gives executives the intelligence they need to make smarter and faster decisions while improving collaboration across the enterprise.

"In an increasingly dynamic business environment, executives need tools to help them sort through vast amounts of data; to transform that data to business insight and drive the agility to capture global growth opportunities," said Laura Kelly, Senior Vice President and Chief Product Officer, D&B. "D&B Direct 2.0 helps businesses improve the flow of information across organizational silos, extract relevant insight from multiple data sources and deliver the right intelligence to key business decision makers. This unlocks new opportunities and markets for executives before their competitors act on them."

In the era of Big Data, executives recognize the critical role information can play in gaining competitive advantage but struggle to accomplish this goal. While 85% of respondents in a recent Harvard Business Review global survey identified information as a key strategic asset, only seven percent said their company was well positioned to use information for growth.¹ According to a report by Forrester Research, Inc., a critical or high priority among all company technology initiatives in the next 12 months will be to improve the use of data and analytics to improve business decisions and outcomes.²

Today's announcement demonstrates D&B's growing web services capabilities to deliver comprehensive data and analytics through the cloud into any commercial or custom application. D&B recently announced the launch of the D&B Data Exchange to provide integrated access to D&B and industry-specific data from select providers and in May announced a new suite of predictive analytics solutions to help companies reduce risk and identify new growth opportunities.

D&B Direct 2.0 uses D&B's proprietary DUNSRight ® matching technology based on the D-U-N-S Number to create trustworthy master records of businesses entities. Companies can connect financial data and analytics, professional contacts, social media, news, industry-specific data and more to develop a more complete and informed view of their customers, prospects, suppliers and partners.

"With hundreds of thousands of customers across the United States, designing an MDM strategy to provide a unified view of the customer would have been nearly impossible without D&B's comprehensive coverage of business data. The D&B Direct API access to this information has been likewise invaluable, speeding up integration processes and reducing cost of implementation and development," said Chris Cosgrove, Enterprise Architect at Jason's Deli, a restaurant chain with approximately 225 U.S. locations in 28 states.

D&B Direct 2.0 drives holistic improvement across an organization by enabling:

  • Finance executives to improve operating cash flow, reduce financial and regulatory risk, make better investment decisions, and more effectively identify, screen and prioritize deals
  • Supply Chain executives to monitor and evaluate supplier and distributor performance, identify cost efficiencies, anticipate supply disruptions and reduce compliance risks
  • Marketing executives to uncover untapped markets, pinpoint the most likely buyers, identify buying signals, and drive increased engagement
  • Sales and Service executives to identify the best new prospects, understand buyer needs, improve account planning and territory management and enhance customer service.

"One of the most important factors in driving future business success is the ability to enable data-driven decisions across the entire organization. Cloud-based technologies that help you gather key insights from your data, transform insights into actionable information, and then make the right decisions to drive better results are key to success," said Ray Wang, Principal Analyst and CEO, Constellation Research.

D&B Direct is currently available in North America. To learn more about D&B Direct, please visit dnb.com/direct.

About Dun & Bradstreet® (D&B)

Dun & Bradstreet (NYSE:DNB) is the world's leading source of commercial information and insight on businesses, enabling companies to Decide with Confidence® for 172 years. D&B's global commercial database contains more than 225 million business records. The database is enhanced by D&B's proprietary DUNSRight® Quality Process, which provides our customers with quality business information. This quality information is the foundation of our global solutions that customers rely on to make critical business decisions.

D&B provides two solution sets that meet a diverse set of customer needs globally. Customers use D&B Risk Management Solutions TM to mitigate credit and supplier risk, increase cash flow and drive increased profitability; and D&B Sales & Marketing Solutions TM to provide data management capabilities that provide effective and cost efficient marketing solutions and to convert prospects into clients by enabling business professionals to research companies, executives and industries.

For more information, please visit www.dnb.com.

¹Harvard Business Review: Unleashing the Value of the Information Economy. January 2010

² Forrester Research: Best Practices: Maximize Your Chances of Business Intelligence Success", July 24, 2013

Dun & Bradstreet
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Patricia Colpitts, 512-578-8016
colpittsp@dnb.com
or
Investor Relations
Roger Sachs, CFA, 973-921-5914
sachsr@DNB.com