An international identifier is a number of different size which comes above or beside the national identification number

National identification number

A national identification number, national identity number, or national insurance number is used by the governments of many countries as a means of tracking their citizens, permanent residents, and temporary residents for the purposes of work, taxation, government benefits, health care, and other...

 and helps to identify a company over several countries in the world.

The main tools used as international identifiers are : EasyNumber

EasyNumber

EasyNumber is a Business information identifier provided by the Easynumber Company, a Joint Venture between the Companies Creditreform and Coface...

, DUNS number, International Suppliers Network

International Suppliers Network

The International Suppliers Network is a system which logs and tracks vendors. Major companies such as General Motors often use the ISN to establish the "trustworthy" status of a new vendor...

 and European Business Register

European business register

The European Business Register is a network of trade registers kept by the registration authorities in most of the European countries. The EBR is part of the fully integrated approach of the European Commission in the legislation designed to achieve regulations to promote transparent financial...

Practical applications

The use of international identifiers is relevant in a wide range of business functions:

• Financial Department:

Consistent basis for risk assessment.

Handling of corporate transparency issues.

• IT Department:

Data access improvement: cross-base access, cross-base requests.

Update of the different databases: cleaning of duplicates, address maintenance.

• Sales Department:

Manage multi-channel sales activities.

Address updating.

Prospect targeting.

• Marketing Department:

Access to up-to-date profile information.

Removal of inactive companies.

Basis for a portfolio analysis

External links

http://www.ebr.org/

www.dnb.com/

http://isn.icharter.org/

http://ec.europa.eu/internal_market/consultations/docs/2009/interconnection_of_business_registers/working_document_en.pdf