Company and Executive Information Services - Digging into LexisNexis Dossier Suite
Jinfo Blog

By Chris Porter

Abstract

Chris Porter comments on his review of the LexisNexis Dossier suite, with a focus on Company Dossier. The research database provides information about companies, executives and industries.

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As announced in a recent article, FreePint is putting together a new collection of product reviews and articles looking at ways of researching company information.

FreePint will be looking at both established and emerging providers, to see what are the best ways of gathering the kinds of company-related data typically needed by researchers.

LexisNexis

One very familiar name in this landscape is global information provider LexisNexis. The vendor is primarily known for its core LexisNexis and Nexis research services, which of course contain much company-related information within them.

However it also has specific packages, marketed under the name of its Dossier Suite and available either as add-ons or standalone services, which bring company, executive and industry data together in ways designed to save time and add value for researchers and sales and marketing professionals.

Company Dossier

LexisNexis told FreePint about initial product research findings indicating that users were previously doing as many as 70 different searches to uncover the company-related content they were looking for. Dossier aims to bring all of that data together seamlessly for them, in a single "company snapshot" view.

The Dossier suite has now been on the market for over a decade. It continues to benefit from enhancements; but it is competing in a market where other players, with varying degrees of fanfare, have been making their own changes and improvements, particularly in an area - integration of profile data and news - which LexisNexis regards as one of its key strengths.

Key Research Questions

In taking a fresh look at LexisNexis Company Dossier, FreePint was very much thinking of the key questions a researcher may be seeking to answer about a company:

• What can I learn about the company's recent and historical financial performance?
• What are the major developments relating to it over the past few years?
• How can I benchmark this company's performance against its peers?
• How can I build and maintain lists of comparable companies, and keep track of them all?
• What are the company's recent activities and strategy and what might it do next?

In considering how well Dossier answers these questions, compared to others in today's marketplace, FreePint digs deep into its quoted and unquoted company financials coverage; extensively explores the various elements of its "snapshot" display; carefully considers its screening, list-building and report-generating capabilities; and particularly ponders how well the product integrates profile data and news searching capabilities.

Watch out for more updates soon in FreePint's collection of reviews and articles on company and executive information services.

Editor's Note

LexisNexis Company Dossier has a host of interesting features. The full FreePint Report: Product Review of LexisNexis Company Dossier is now available in PDF format, in a convenient package for reference and sharing, for those with a FreePint Subscription.

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