Tracking the jungle of Indonesian business info

Tracking the jungle of Indonesian business info

JAKARTA (JP): Foreign businesses intending to enter the
Indonesian market or seek local partners for joint ventures have
often discovered how extremely difficult it is to get reliable
information on local companies.

There are several main causes of the problems which are
inherent in developing countries like Indonesia: The absence of
full-fledged credit information agencies and a company registry
office as well as the small number of publicly-listed companies
that have to fulfill disclosure requirements.

Occasional media reports on alleged collusions between
accountants and companies to manipulate financial reports only
add to the apprehension that the system of business information
in this country is still very much a jungle with numerous traps.

Several business data centers do have operations here. The
biggest and most popular are the CIC Consulting Group, which has
profiled almost all of the major industrial, trading and
financial companies in the country, and Pusat Data Bisnis
Indonesia (Indonesian Business Data Center).

But they have yet to gain the reputation that is acceptable to
big international companies.

Several domestic banks have set up the credit rating agency PT
Pefindo. But Pefindo only rates the credit worthiness of the
companies which intend to float bonds.

But the need for business information on Indonesian companies
has grown as quickly as the country's international trade. More
and more foreign companies are interested in entering the
domestic market or setting up joint ventures with local
businesses.

"That is precisely the market need we want to meet," says
Rustam Kocher, the chief representative of Dun & Bradstreet
Information Services (DBIS) which recently opened an office in
the Wisma Dharmala building here.

DBIS is a unit of the multinational Dun & Bradstreet
Corporation, a provider of business information, software and
services of the United States which last year posted total
operating revenues of US$4.89 billion.

Kocher says around 9,000 Indonesian companies have been
entered into the DBIS Worldbase data bank, which also has over 38
million individual company records and details.

Individual company records stored in the data base cover basic
facts such as net worth, sales, types of operations, balance
sheets, payment and banking history, subsidiaries/affiliates,
branch networks, loans, debentures, shareholders, names of
directors and the experience and background of key executives.

Information

Indonesian companies, he says, can also use the DBIS
information service to assess potential customers overseas.

"We collect our information through trained business analysts,
electronic on-line sources, bulk data loads and publicly
available records," Kocher adds.

But all data are always subject to quality editing and
reviews, he says.

According to him, data collection, processing and verification
for the DBIS data bank can be done efficiently because the Dun &
Bradstreet Corp. also has many other information-related
divisions, including IMS International, Nielsen, Survey Research
Group and Moody's Investors Service (rating agency), Dataquest,
Pilot Software and the Gartner Group.

Dun & Bradstreet, he says, has offices in 31 countries and
data-gathering capabilities spanning nearly 200 nations.

"Many companies also voluntarily and regularly file their
corporate data to us either in light of applying for a credit
rating or because they are fully aware of the benefits of being
included in our data bank," Kocher says.

Moreover, he adds, many major global customers demand that
their suppliers carry a DUNS (Data Universal Number System)
number as a unique identifier for global linkages.

A DUNS number is a nine-digit code assigned by Dun &
Bradstreet to each business entity in its information base.

Business information reports are delivered to customers either
over a fax machine or on-line through a computer.

Kocher says customers usually use the DBIS information reports
to make intelligent risk management decisions regarding their
customers and suppliers.

Such management decisions may relate to approval of orders,
setting of credit lines, evaluations of accounts, verification of
vendors, identification of financial behavior patterns, assessing
loan applications and insurance risks.

Wilson Nababan, Chairman of the CIC Consulting Group, however
is not worried by Dun & Bradtsreet's operations here.

"The business of information services is not mainly a matter
of technology but more of access to reliable sources of
information. That is where our advantage lies," Wilson says.

Moreover, Wilson adds, in so far as the present system of
information in Indonesia is concerned, the information business
depends mainly on the capability to interpret, analyze and
process data.

Its latest annual report put the operating revenue of the Dun
& Bradstreet Corp. at US$4.89 billion with a net income of $629.5
million in 1994.

Users of the DBIS information system are charged fees at
different rates, depending on the volume and types of information
required. (vin)