D&B ERAM Creates Instant Decision Engine for Automated Credit Assessments
Online Sales Expansion to Accelerate Revenue
The growing need for cybersecurity solutions means there’s no shortage of demand for this leading company, which makes hardware and software for other businesses to secure the cloud. The company serves mid-to-large enterprises in almost every industry and has a large, diverse base – some 60,000 customers in more than 150 countries around the world.
Like other B2B technology firms, it relies on a small network of channel partners and distributors to sell its products and services, some of which are custom solutions with highly technical implementations. However, the company saw an opportunity to enter direct sales for its less-complex solutions that don’t require a heavy consultation. They wanted to launch an e-commerce site to expand into online sales and create an additional revenue stream.
Automated Credit Decisions Yield Targeted Risk Assessments
The company turned to Dun & Bradstreet to enable automated credit decisioning within the e-commerce site for a no-touch customer experience. On the site, which launched in 2019, customers can choose to pay by credit card or they can request terms and apply for a line of business credit.
Dun & Bradstreet recommended D&B Enterprise Risk Assessment Manager (ERAM) to facilitate the credit evaluations and help manage the credit accounts. This comprehensive finance solution uses automated credit scoring to instantly assess potential risk and assign credit limits and terms for applicants based on Dun & Bradstreet’s industry-leading data and analytics and the customer’s criteria.
By leveraging ERAM, customers don’t have to fill out lengthy credit applications or provide supplementary financial information, which can appreciably slow down the sales process.
“We chose ERAM so we’d be able to score the direct sales customers very quickly, because we won’t be able to get detailed financials from them within the couple of minutes it takes them to apply. So that’s where having a decision engine like ERAM has been a huge benefit for us,” the company’s Credit and Collections Manager said.
The scorecards used to power the decision engine and calculate credit risk leverage such Dun & Bradstreet analytics as the D&B PAYDEX® Score and the Global Business Ranking (GBR), which is crucial to scoring customers outside the US. With comprehensive business information on more than hundreds of millions of entities around the world, Dun & Bradstreet is able to provide both extensive trade payment history and predictive insight on future payment risk.
“[With our traditional sales] we relied mainly on the financials that the customer provided us and we did our analysis. Now, with ERAM, it’s incredible that we can better and more quickly assess potential risk with D&B’s data,” he said.
Flexible Integration for E-Commerce Success
Integration with the company’s CRM was critical to making online purchasing as seamless as possible for customers. ERAM is a flexible solution that can be integrated into any CRM or ERP, and Dun & Bradstreet’s customer consultant team worked in lockstep with the customer for a seamless implementation (despite some fairly complex engineering).
“The service was really A-plus. Just from a training and implementation perspective, it was top notch, because [the team] was very pleasant to work with. They were always open and willing, and [they] respond right away. I think that let us know we are in good hands,” he said.
While the e-commerce solution has been live for only a few months, the company is pleased with the speed of approvals and looks forward to the increased sales that the e-commerce site will bring.