infoUSA has announced that it will compile a business database containing all businesses in the U.K. The company plans to create the database by culling information from a collection of publicly available sources and by conducting between 2 and 3 million telephone surveys each year to help populate data in the entries with proprietary information. That information will include a company's trading address, name of the owner or manager, number of employees per location, web site address (URL), years established and whether the company is a single location or part of a larger organization.
infoUSA plans to compile all of the information for this new database in its Manchester (U.K.) facility, eliminating the need for outsourced help. Customers of a variety of sizes will be able to purchase the database in a variety of forms, from customized list products and online access to subscription services and license agreements to value added resellers.
A database of this kind is an absolute necessity as more and more businesses go global, especially due to the Internet. There is no doubt an eager market for this particular product and chances are that infoUSA will continue to create databases for regions it doesn’t currently cover.
It's also nice to see infoUSA taking the initiative to create the database on its own--using its own in-house resources to compile this extensive data. Knowing that the company plans to use such an enormous number of surveys to compile the data is a comforting thought and it really emphasizes infoUSA's commitment to accuracy. This entire initiative is impressive because creating such a complete database from scratch is such a large undertaking. It seems like many new databases today are just cobbled together from many disparate sources. This seems to be an incredibly organized effort that will most likely produce a quality product.