Jim and Alex on stage demoing Cortera Circles. Create your Circle today! www.cortera.com

I think it is safe to say that we caused the biggest stir at the show. We went through 700 buttons! Not bad considering there were roughly 1000 attendees. But, what was striking was how well received our commentary was among credit professionals. We pointed out what we think is wrong with our industry and what we are doing about it. It’s a pretty simple message – we are building great credit risk products based on the best of traditional products combined with the insights of the community and offering them to the market at the lowest possible prices – even free. Choice and competition is a good thing. Our booth traffic universally agreed with a genuine showing of enthusiasm over our approach and our products. What was even better was that attendees would tour the floor then come back for more with a common theme – “we are not seeing anything like this from anyone else here”. I thought this summed it up the best:

“I have never seen a company listen to what their customers are saying, and then put those suggestions into practice the way Cortera does. It is amazing what their product suite does and how it continues to adapt to the ever changing needs of the credit profession. I would not want to do my job without Cortera.”

- Darrell Horton, Revenue and AR Manager, Shuffle Master, Inc.

All and all it was a great show. The booth was swamped with customers, other vendors and prospects that were universally saying the same thing: “It’s about time.” I have a few more poignant others too, but I can’t exactly quote those here

Here are just a few examples of Circles created by members since we launched – all sharing their credit risk experiences:

• “HVACR” Circle – A Group for the heating, air conditioning, plumbing and refrigeration industry.
• “Manufacturing & Distribution – Heavy Duty Truck and Trailer” Circle – A group for manufacturers and Distribution of Truck and Trailer parts for new and pre-owned trucks and trailers, both over the road and off-road truck and trailer equipment.
• “Sign Manufacturer” Circle – A group for the manufacturers of architectural signs.

I can’t help but think back to September 2009 when Cortera launched a community-based alternative to business credit reporting. Aimed at small businesses, who were often neglected from the credit reporting process, the service combined credit data with familiar social review and ratings functions — quite literally encouraging a crowdsourced approach to credit reports. The service became an instant hit with the press and a game changing, if not controversial, development in the 100+ year old business credit reporting market. With yesterday’s launch we are building on this successful community foundation while transforming risk management tools from static information solutions to dynamic, real-time social circles where people can share information. Traditionally organizing risk professionals into groups has been limited to the largest organizations. These groups, while highly useful in sharing credit information, meet only a few times per year and lack the efficient movement of risk information required to fully exploit the group’s organization.

The solution: Cortera Circles – A social extension to our platform that brings the tried-and-true – but often exclusive – concept of local and industry-based credit groups to the Web and the masses. Delivered as a free service, in a streamlined form, Circles can be created around a company, an industry or even project or job site–with each supplier and service provider providing their own unique perspective for ultimate financial transparency.

Create your Circle today and start getting the real-time insights you’ve always wanted from your most trusted peers.

• leimer – Wikinvest, fiserv and cortera most impressive in opening round of finovate. Visa guys like robots. /via @cxasia

• mobileslate – #finovate #cortera $2 trillion lent btween US businesses – showing small biz credit reporting (Replacing DUNS?)
• leimer – Jim Swift from Cortera #finovate demo starts with amazing stat,$2 trillion lent btwn US bus.,showing small biz (cont) http://tl.gd/18far7
• jpunishill – @cortera, has finger on prblm, but how 2 get peers 2 engage & 2 adjust 4 the many biases seen in peer revws? be fun to c them try #finovate
• pennyminder – Jim Swift from Cortera #finovate demo starts with amazing stat,$2 trillion lent btwn US bus.,showing small biz credit reporting /@netbanker
• netbanker – Cortera launching small business “circles” to facilitate sharing of credit info on mutual customers
• consected – #finovate http://blog.consected.com/2010/05/finovate-cortera.html business is personal and risk management requires a social aspect
• leimer – cortera brings business risk management for $3 that brings in social channel to tell if businesses pay their bills, worth risk. #finovate

• matthieusoule – Cortera: facilitate B2B lending, risk management tool & reputation assessment #finovate

Think of Circles as LinkedIn meets business credit reporting – the ease of joining a LinkedIn group meets the sharing of real deal/hard numbers of an offline credit group. Have a question about a business who you are about to extend credit? Now you can ask your peers with your own credit Circle. In just a few minutes you can create and invite your business friends and best of all it’s free to use and open to anyone. Need insights outside of your own network or entering a new market, simply browse the many existing Circles to the tap intelligence of thousands of others.

Business credit reporting, risk management tools and systems are hardly new – Cortera itself is one of the more successful providers of such solutions. But to date, such solutions run algorithms, business rules, and static, structured data feeds to help companies more efficiently identify risk. Cortera Circles will, in contrast, thrive off of ongoing and ever changing contributions and sharing between like-minded businesses. This dynamic information will be exclusively crowdsourced. Microgroups will serve the immediate needs of localized and project-specific audiences to provide insight into risks that are hyperlocal in nature and far too specific to be accurately addressed by traditional solutions. Today’s report-based solutions as point-in-time snapshots that immediately age—a result of decades old technology that has evolved little despite the social web’s impact on nearly every other aspect of business. In contrast, Cortera’s group sourced approach delivers a live risk assessment, continuously updated by the community.

Have a question about a business’s ability to pay their bills in a timely manner? We make it as simple as asking your Circle.

We are on stage during the first session: 8:30 – 9:45 AM.  Our group includes MoneyAisle, Fiserv, Wikinvest, Worklight, Visa, oFlows, eRollover, Bill.com and Cortera.

Stay tuned…we reveal what’s new from Cortera tomorrow morning.

For example, in London, I spoke to a group of senior credit professionals about how the use of today’s social and web technologies are impacting the business credit profession. I expected (and got) a lively debate. For these types of conversations turned debates, I always start with: Who here, for business, uses Twitter? Facebook? LinkedIn? Hands go up with Twitter being the smallest and LinkedIn being the largest. Then I ask the simple question – who uses business credit reports? Everyone raises their hands. Now, who uses Google AFTER you pull a credit report to get more information about that business? All the hands in the room go up.

After several stories were shared about the how the free search actually revealed better insights, one comment caught me off guard. It was from perhaps the most senior person in the room in terms of industry experience, who shot out this: “Commercial credit bureaus, you are officially on notice – this is all going to be free one day, and we won’t be having this debate. There is going to be a better way. There has to, it’s only a matter of time.”

Back in the states, in New Jersey at a user group, I asked the same series of questions and got the exact same response. This time I’m interrupted by one credit manager with: “Who actually likes their current provider [he named the bureau]? Who thinks the data is up to date or accurate?” The whole room erupts into rants about how unreliable the information is for them. It’s not exactly a good sign when no one has anything good to say about their PAID information providers. This is especially rough to hear when you are one of the credit bureaus.

I then traveled to the Credit Research Foundation in San Diego and every conversation I have goes about the same – credit professionals are tired of the status quo. Over and over I heard from them that they are looking for something new.

I couldn’t agree more. Doing things the way we always have is broken. And it has always been broken. Only 10,000 businesses in the US contribute to commercial credit bureaus, yet there are 25 million businesses in the US – something is wrong with this picture.

We clearly need to do better. And while I think (shameless plug) that Cortera represents a significant step in the right direction. It’s only part of the giant leap we are encouraging the industry – and ourselves — to take in the near future.

Have a story to share about how you use the best of the social and free web in your credit decisions? Startlingly bad data from a high priced credit report? Suggestions on what the future of business credit info? Tell us below.

What made this particular meeting standout for me was that for the first time in memory, there were a handful of new members that had never been to this credit group (or any other) before. When a curious but slightly timid newcomer was tapped to discuss one of his accounts first, he requested “Can someone else go first? I’ve never been to one of these – I want to learn how it works.” It was a reminder to veterans that while this may be an essential part of how they do their job, the process of sharing such information – and the realization of resulting benefits – is something that needs to be experienced to be fully understood. Following the meeting, a 30-year veteran of the group recalled his initial experience and why he’s remained committed to collective information sharing throughout his career. Put simply, he felt like it was his duty to pass along his knowledge, techniques and even his network to the next generation, just as the previous generation had done the same for him. And he credited the group and extended network of contacts it has created with an ongoing ability to perform his job at a superior level.

And therein lies the key to such networks — why members remain so committed. Credit and collections decisions are a year-round effort. On the one hand, such meetings provide a period, invaluable opportunity to gain insights that simply don’t show up on a standard business credit report. But equally if not more importantly, they offer the opportunity to broaden a network of peers who can provide similar insight on a when-needed basis.

Given such the added benefits at a time when so many businesses are looking to reduce risks and improve cash flow, we want to know: Are you seeing an uptick in membership and participation in your credit groups? Are you joining new ones? Do you find yourself tapping into such networks more often? We’d love to hear from you. How are you leveraging your credit network?

Key Benefits of Participation in a Credit Group

Transfer knowledge, new strategies, tips and best practices

• With collections activities up significantly and disputes on the rise credit groups provide the perfect setting for sharing best practices and successful credit, collections and risk management techniques (both new and old)
• Outside experts can also provide unique insights and additional support that are often more expensive to obtain for a single company (many experts will participate at no cost to promote their company or credentials to potential customers in the group). In my case I was invited last week to run a workshop and presented on Collecting in an Economic Downturn
• Attendees often learn from their peers about the latest technology, information, and scoring products

Trade experiences

• Providing your company’s monthly trade experience information to your industry credit group (and all commercial credit bureaus) provides better transparency and has been shown to improve payment behavior
• Submitters often receive additional services such as credit scores, delinquency predictor scores or unique identifier information at no cost in return for providing their A/R experience
• In a live and confidential setting, sharing past facts on your experiences with customers provides unique commentary not found on a generic credit report
• Members benefit from the collective credit investigation capabilities of the entire group and their respective departments
• Benchmarking and industry trends, like those provided by Cortera, help members understand their performance versus their peers

Relationship building

• Long-term support of these groups builds invaluable relationships with your peers that helps protect the entire industry against fraud and frequent late payers
• Member sharing also helps build better information and technology solutions that are specific to the trade group

Member alerting

• The peer-driven, member alerting services provided by most credit groups are essential for communicating between meetings and ensuring the immediate flow of potential industry or customer risk. These services are only available to group members and cannot be purchased if you are not an active member
• Meeting hosts further expand this communication through delivering timely industry news, best-practices, and company-level insights to ensure regular knowledge transfer back to the credit group

Lowering Travel Costs

• Attend local regional meetings. These are often off-shoots of the national meetings and provide helpful member experience both locally and nationally
• Encourage members of the credit team to attend in their region and communicate to the national or global team
• Host meetings at your facilities to avoid hotel expenses
• Participate via conference call if you cannot attend in person

Have a tip or comment? Add it below to keep the sharing going.