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Background Note
Lewis Tappan (Tappan) set up the forerunner of Dun & Bradstreet, namely Lewis Tappan's Mercantile Agency (TMA) in 1841. It was to provide information to American merchants regarding the creditworthiness and reliability of different clients and customers. Tappan established a network of correspondents who provided reliable and consistent credit information services.
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In 1849, Tappan sold the agency to Benjamin Douglass (Douglass), a former clerk, who expanded the network of TMA offices. Douglass' efforts brought in new customers for TMA and positioned it as an agency providing very dependable and correct information. He also decided to hire full time employees, who went on to become highly skilled credit reporters and interpreters of credit information.
Meanwhile in 1849, John M Bradstreet Company was founded. This company popularized the use of credit ratings. In 1859, RG Dun (Dun), the brother in law of Douglas, took over TMA and renamed it RG Dun & Company (RG
Dun).
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In 1870, there were around 7000 subscribers for the services of RG Dun, which increased to 40,000 by 1880. By 1900, the company's subscriber base had risen to over one million.
In 1933, RG Dun and Bradstreet Company merged to form Dun & Bradstreet. The decision to merge was taken on account of the poor financial performance of both companies because of the Great Depression. The CEO of RG Dun, Arthur Whiteside, was instrumental in finalizing the deal.
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After the Second World War, Dun & Bradstreet witnessed exponential growth. With the increase in the speed and volume of cross border communications, Dun & Bradstreet emerged as a leader in the global business information industry. Among the many prominent people who worked for the company were men who later went on to become US presidents - Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses S Grant, Grover Cleveland and William McKinley.
In the 1960s and 1970s, Dun & Bradstreet expanded its range of products and services under the leadership of J Wilson Newman. In 1962, the Data Universal Numbering System (DUNS5) was introduced to identify businesses numerically for data processing purposes... |
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