ICC announces new credit checking services for VARs

Integrated information services set for launch in 2008

Risk and credit information provider ICC will launch two new services, as well as significantly increase functionality to its flagship ‘my ICC’ offering, in 2008.

The first new service, Consult ICC, will deliver bespoke credit risk scores and decision making tools that will enable client teams to extract the maximum benefit from ICC’s business information.

While the second new service, Integrate ICC, has been designed for clients who wish to merge ICC’s content provision with other information streams to support their own proprietary systems.

A representative for ICC, told CRN that both services were designed to help resellers check and then monitor their customers' credit rating on an ongoing basis, enabling resellers to mange their own exposure.

"Because each reseller will have a different approach to risk and the markets that they supply, those scores and how they are used can be tailored individually and will benchmark each company against its peers in any given sector," added the representative.

Both of the new services are based on my ICC which was launched just over a year ago and has continued to roll out new functionality throughout 2007. My ICC ends the year with some significant additions that will replace ICC’s Juniper and Juniper XD services during the course of 2008.

There will also be three new themed services that offer specific functionality. My ICC for credit management has been built with finance and credit managers in mind; my ICC for analysis is being developed to cater for the needs of people who need to slice and dice the data their way, quickly and easily; while my ICC Anywhere is nearing completion and is designed to work specifically with PDAs, enabling individuals to obtain and search credit reports wherever they may be.

Paul Westcott, product development director at ICC, believes that this is a real breakthrough. "This is a vital service to sales forces in the field. Now they can check that a prospect will meet their finance department’s credit requirements whilst in front of the prospect. This will remove a significant hurdle in the sales process, decrease decision making time, keep the salesman in front of the prospect and deliver a real competitive advantage”.

To complement the new services, ICC has introduced new flexible pricing structures that reflect the individual ways that customers wish to interact and extract content.