1.0Faces Onlinehttps://faces-online.nl/en/Asset Financialshttps://faces-online.nl/en/author/elleke-bender/rich600338<blockquote class="wp-embedded-content" data-secret="noPhwvzz7z"><a href="https://faces-online.nl/en/interview-mark-wessel/">Interview Mark Wessels</a></blockquote><iframe sandbox="allow-scripts" security="restricted" src="https://faces-online.nl/en/interview-mark-wessel/embed/#?secret=noPhwvzz7z" width="600" height="338" title="“Interview Mark Wessels” — Faces Online" data-secret="noPhwvzz7z" frameborder="0" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" scrolling="no" class="wp-embedded-content"></iframe><script type="text/javascript"> /* <![CDATA[ */ /*! This file is auto-generated */ !function(d,l){"use strict";l.querySelector&&d.addEventListener&&"undefined"!=typeof URL&&(d.wp=d.wp||{},d.wp.receiveEmbedMessage||(d.wp.receiveEmbedMessage=function(e){var t=e.data;if((t||t.secret||t.message||t.value)&&!/[^a-zA-Z0-9]/.test(t.secret)){for(var s,r,n,a=l.querySelectorAll('iframe[data-secret="'+t.secret+'"]'),o=l.querySelectorAll('blockquote[data-secret="'+t.secret+'"]'),c=new RegExp("^https?:$","i"),i=0;i<o.length;i++)o[i].style.display="none";for(i=0;i<a.length;i++)s=a[i],e.source===s.contentWindow&&(s.removeAttribute("style"),"height"===t.message?(1e3<(r=parseInt(t.value,10))?r=1e3:~~r<200&&(r=200),s.height=r):"link"===t.message&&(r=new URL(s.getAttribute("src")),n=new URL(t.value),c.test(n.protocol))&&n.host===r.host&&l.activeElement===s&&(d.top.location.href=t.value))}},d.addEventListener("message",d.wp.receiveEmbedMessage,!1),l.addEventListener("DOMContentLoaded",function(){for(var e,t,s=l.querySelectorAll("iframe.wp-embedded-content"),r=0;r<s.length;r++)(t=(e=s[r]).getAttribute("data-secret"))||(t=Math.random().toString(36).substring(2,12),e.src+="#?secret="+t,e.setAttribute("data-secret",t)),e.contentWindow.postMessage({message:"ready",secret:t},"*")},!1)))}(window,document); //# sourceURL=https://faces-online.nl/wp-includes/js/wp-embed.min.js /* ]]> */ </script> https://faces-online.nl/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/Faces-banner-ter-vervanging.jpg1200628Could you tell us something about yourself? What did you study and what does your career path look like so far? From 1988 till 1994 I studied history in Groningen, after which I moved to Germany, where I worked for 3M a number of years. 3M manufactures kind of everything that glues things together. I mainly did market research, and some product launches. Then, I moved to Frankfurt to work as an account manager for Bureau van Dijk. I was appointed to key account manager relatively quickly, and as such, I have been dealing mostly with the big German banks. Thereafter, I started working for the same firm in The Netherlands in 2000. Initially, I was the only one working here. A certain base existed at the time, but from 2000 I have become responsible for all sales- and marketing related activities here in The Netherlands. I am directing these activities. What does the governance structure of Bureau van Dijk look like? We are part of a private equity fund (Charterhouse) and its management. Our Board of Directors consists of Dominique Carnoy (CEO), Alexis Giry (CFO), and a CTO (Chief Technology Officer). The local country and region managers are relatively independent and responsible for their own market strategy. Could you tell us more about your tasks and responsibilities at Bureau van Dijk? I am responsible for all sales, marketing, product development and support in The Netherlands. Product development focuses mainly on products specifically geared at the Dutch market; sales and marketing are self-explanatory. We employ a number of sales- and marketing managers and a client support team in The Netherlands. I am in charge of these teams and further growth. How does Bureau van Dijk make money and what are its largest costs? Bureau van Dijk sells data banks containing information on firms. We work with subscriptions, which means that we sell licenses to our clients, which entitle them to use our software for a certain period of time and to download limited parts of the firm data set for processing in their own systems. This could be for the purposes of, for instance, research or performing analyses. Usually this is a subscription that is renewed annually. Bureau van Dijk receives part of the revenues of these license agreements, and the other part goes to the information suppliers. If you consider the part of revenues that goes to information suppliers as costs, then this would be our largest cost. If you do not consider this as a cost, then it would be staff costs. How many people are working for Bureau van Dijk in The Netherlands? We are working with 20 people here in The Netherlands, and we have 600 employees worldwide. Of these, the most are working in Brussels, but we also have a number of research departments in Manchester, Singapore and India. Bureau van Dijk provides databases to its clients. What does this exactly mean? We are working together with information suppliers, such as Lexis Nexis, who in turn obtain their information from other sources. They provide us with the data and we build software to deduplicate and clean the data, to fill omissions, etcetera. In that way we get an as complete as possible, standardized database with company information. We developed several search interfaces to unlock the data needed. Once the data is unlocked, you will have a list with, for example, potential acquisition targets or potential competitors and suppliers. We also developed tools to analyze the data obtained, for example for the purposes of market research, peer group analysis, risk analysis, etcetera. Thus, we take care of the data getting harmonized, standardized and linked. Our business model consists of supplying information, but in actual fact we are a software company. When I use, for example, Orbis through your website, then this is online available. I do not need to install a particular software or anything. That is right. We have got two models: the web model, through which you can access data online, and a physical model, where you purchase the data on DVD, Blu-ray, or hard disk. There are a number of companies, such as in banking, which do not wish to expose their applications to the outside world out of safety concerns. Those companies make use of those hard disks, to keep their applications shielded. In principle, this is the same software as in the online model, with the same interface, and the like. How do the sales work? Is it true that the sales people go to the (potential) customer, or are they contacted by telephone? When we try to sell our products, we basically do not sell databases; We are trying to put down a solution for the customer. With a set of different products, we are trying to achieve the best possible solution. A license costs around 15,000 euros on average, so you cannot sell it just over the phone. In selling our products, visiting customers and prospects is a very important task of our account managers. If you look at our sales process, I estimate that about 50% of our new turnover comes from our existing customer base, for example by cross-sales. The other 50% is generated from new clients. The process in itself is reasonably structured. You generally begin with a ‘cold call’, where you are trying to find out whether there is any connection. If there is, we are trying to set up an exploratory meeting, in order to find out if there is indeed a need. In such a conversation we go more in depth, and if people think that there is a common ground and the customer thinks that we can help them solve specific problems, you go to a “review”. In a review we will look at how our services could meet the needs of the customer and we agree on how the customer is going to test and review our products, i.e. the criteria that the customer is going to apply to judge