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Gold/Mining/Energy : Net Shepherd Inc. (WEB) on ASE -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Mike Perras who wrote (403)	9/23/1999 12:07:00 AM
From: Crazy Canuck	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1252

>>as I remember you mentioned that Net Shepherd had done a test of their service with them.<< Good Evening Mike, Here is the key sections of the prior post I put out that refers to the work that NSI did for Dun & Bradstreet. >>Net Shepherd conducted a test with Dunn & Bradstreet to measure speed, cost, and accuracy of the collection of information from distributed web sites. D&B wanted some specific information collected off of approx. 10,000 targeted sites. D&B had conducted their information search and it took them approx. 30 days to collect the information, at a cost of $2.50 per site. Net Shepherd duplicated the same search process. They completed this collection of data in 3 days (vs.. 30 days for D&B), at an average cost of $.25 per site (vs.. $2.50 for D&B), and with an accuracy rate of 90%. Now the significance of this is that any small, medium, or large firm who is interested in conducting any market research and/or competition modelling can now use Net Shepherd to perform this task for them. The information will be accurate, comprehensive, and very close to real time. I am also aware that Net Shepherd has conducted a similar project for Discover Card. << I recall last week's CNBC show where David Faber was relating the massive problem that Dun & Bradstreet was having with trying to stay current. He mentioned that they have been slow to modernize their data collection processes. He also mentioned that they are getting pressured by some of their larger shareholders to do something about it or - as he put it - "find a banker and sell the company, or split it in two". Well D&B had their Board of Directors' meeting last Wednesday. At this meeting they decided to keep the company together and try and fix it on their own. One of their people was given the new role as head of their technology operations (or something to that effect). What blew me away was that they (CNBC) put up a slide that showed that D&B had a database on 55 million businesses! I almost fell out of my chair when I heard that. I thought it was only a fraction of that number. So, based on the initial pilot study that NSI did with them, (where they showed that NSI could collect the data ten times faster, at a tenth of the cost, and at a comparable accuracy rate), then I can really see where the new and improved NSI could help them with their task of modernizing their information gathering process. Using your words, I guess the alternative before D & B is to do it the way they always have . . . >>as we spoke for at least 15 minutes & we are only one company. At that rate it would take a person a full day to complete only 28 companies.<< I guess it would be an accurate assumption that a company like General Motors, might take a little longer than 15 minutes to update their information, but for the sake of argument, lets say that a 15 minute average per company is reasonable. Now at that rate, 55 million companies divided by 28 companies per day = 1,964,286 days of work! Divide that number into person years of work (average 250 work days per yr.) and it would take 7,857 years to complete the job. Now please don't get me wrong, I believe that D & B is a great institution, and their reputation over the years has been stellar. However, they seem to be under siege at the moment, and I believe that NSI could help them if they are interested. I just hope that for everyone's sake, that the pilot test results aren't sitting on someone's desk collecting dust. Thanks for the note Mike, if made my day! <ggg>.