Whether it’s a visit from a loved one, a gift to remember, or a card from an old friend, surprises are a treat at Christmas, but for anyone in business, they are rarely welcome at any time of year!
In today's uncertain economic environment, businesses need stability to plan for investment, growth and long-term success. While every organisation must adapt to changing market conditions, relying on reactive decision-making can expose businesses to unnecessary financial risk.
One of the biggest threats to business resilience is the unexpected failure of a key customer or supplier. When a major company enters insolvency, experiences financial distress, or stops paying invoices, the impact can quickly spread throughout the supply chain, affecting cash flow, disrupting operations, and increasing credit risk for its partners.
Unfortunately, many businesses only discover a trading partner is experiencing financial difficulties when it is already too late to act. By that point, outstanding debts may be unrecoverable and alternative suppliers or customers can be difficult to secure.
This is where the Coface Score provides a significant advantage. Unlike traditional company credit reports that focus primarily on insolvency risk, the Coface Score assesses the probability of payment default over the next 12 months, enabling businesses to identify financial warning signs much earlier.
By providing a forward-looking view of commercial credit risk, businesses can make more informed decisions about customers, suppliers and prospects, helping reduce exposure to bad debt and payment delays.
Coface provides risk coverage in over 190 countries, and our underwriters make up to 10,000 decisions every day. The nature of our business demands that we dig deeper than publicly filed accounts, so we take into account business intelligence from a wealth of sources, including our database of 130 millioncompanies, payment incidents notified by our 50,000 credit insurance clients, our global network of information partners, and the latest updates from our risk analysts on the ground.
This comprehensive approach helps businesses conduct more effective company due diligence, assess customer and supplier risk, and gain a clearer understanding of a trading partner's financial health before making important commercial decisions.
With the Coface Score, businesses can instantly evaluate a company's default risk, presented on a scale of 0-10, with lower scores indicating higher levels of risk. This forward-looking credit risk assessment helps organisations identify potential warning signs before financial difficulties become apparent through conventional reporting.
The Coface Score is one of the unique insights available on Urba360, Coface’s new online risk management tool. Urba360 provides an easy-to-understand graphic picture of a company’s risk. From the dashboard, you can instantly see the vital statistics for a trading partner and then drill down to the finer details, including 26 different financial ratios and relevant macro-economic analysis. The intuitive interaction means you can find what you need with a click, rather than wading through pages of information in a business report.
While it is impossible to eliminate all trade risk, Coface’s expert analysis helps ensure you won’t be blindsided by the loss of an important customer or supplier at a critical moment. An early warning system could be the best present you can give your business this year.
Find out more about how your business can benefit from the Coface Score or Urba360, request a demo.