The key advantage of the Merlin Scott Reports is that they are based on the very latest real information filed for each of the companies included. We have gone to considerable trouble to refine the listings so that the averages and rankings featured for each sector actually reflect the patterns of trade in that sector. You will not get this same focus elsewhere - particiularly not if the listings are produced using SIC codes. For the purposes of benchmarking financial performance the results depend entirely on comparing apples with apples and so the care and research we at Merlin Scott have taken to include the relevant companies and only the relevant companies will pay off.
Of course as you can see we are covering a lot of sectors and while our focus is to produce the most relevant listing possible we will from time to time overlook or misclasify firms. But all is not lost since customers will have no problem using our unique free updating service to add any further relevant limited firms they require. In fact customers can use this service to see the latest information on any UK limited company - all 4.2 million of them. The customer website contains the "Add Companies" facility to search for firms using combinations of name, director, postcode etc etc so as to find the tricky firms where limited company names are not simply the same as trading names.
Some of our customers re-subscribe just to get access to this facility since it is such a powerful research tool allowing the viewing of shared directorships, the chain of ownership and the key results of any UK firm. In fact any firm in any sector can be printed to PDF in hand summary form. It is often very interesting just what else competitors are involved with and this part of our service which is available to all ciustomers makes it easy to see.
The customers who get the best from our industry reports service typically buy the searchable database version of the sector report of interest. First they make sure all the relevant firms are included using the "Add Company" facility - we can include any relevant limited firm required. This means that they are helping to improve the full report listings for all customers and indeed some of our best suggestions come from customers in this way. Next they select just the firms from the revised full report listing which are of direct interest to them and create a customised report listing these firms. The searchable database allows selections by combinations of name, by financial critera such as sales, or profits or by geographic criteria. With exactly the right firms in the customised report the averages, trends and rankings will be more focused and useful. The searchable database also allows the download of the data in a spreadsheet format.
Its the old story - rubbish in/rubbish out, so the more care in the selection of the firms to be included the better and more useful the results. Imagine relying on SIC codes as you might elsewhere for calculations of market share or industry rankings - as I say without the right listing of firms the results would be worse than useless.
We update all the reports above once a week, and also the private customised reports created with customers, competitors or potential acquisition targets. It is simple to logon to the Merlin Scott customer website whenever the latest version of the full report or any customised report is required and download the latest analysis of exactly the relevant firms to you. We take care of the tedious matter of keeping things up to date leaving customers free to make decisions based on the real data and trends in their sector.
