Why Company Data Matters

Your Data Business – Series, Issue #4

We spoke with Javier Paniagua of SpazioDati. He works on the search platform and lead generation service called Atoka. Atoka integrates official and unofficial data to build a rich graph of companies and company-related entities such as people and locations. Within euBusinessGraph SpazioDati are incorporating more data sources and extending Atoka to new jurisdictions: the United Kingdom and Norway. Moreover, Javier and his team are going beyond information aggregation and organisation by developing business indicators that provide insights and interpretation to help our customers put all this information to work.

Javier, can you tell us what has SpazioDati worked on lately?

We have been working on extending our coverage of company data both in breadth: new jurisdictions beyond Italy, and in depth: new types of data. We added information on British companies with Norwegian companies coming soon. We have financial statement data, contact channels, tech employed in company websites and new indices that offer more interpretation of the data: an index that measures likelihood of a company doing business with different jurisdictions and another that measures a company’s social presence. Additionally, we have done a lot of work to let our customers bring their own data into our graph, use it seamlessly and build models and services that answer very specific needs.

What’s in it for us?

Take sales reps for example: they need to be aware of what a company is doing *now* to optimise prospect screening. A similar thing happens with marketing managers: they need a very up-to-date picture of that niche sector only a few are paying attention to so they can get there first. Perhaps there is a customer with a lot of data about the performance of one of their products. What if this data could be used to find potentially interested companies in a new region they are about to enter? We can help our customer find these companies and know what is the best way to reach them.

How does your work make a difference?

Company data can be found in lots of places. Moreover, many jurisdictions are releasing their company register databases as open data. Although register data is very important, by itself it is not enough to paint an accurate picture of a company and their recent past and evolution. We build around this official information, connecting as many data sources as we can. A great part of the appeal of our product is that it integrates information from non-official sources like company websites and social media. To do so, we apply semantic technologies to manage and understand text. In this way we extract information such as key people and contacts, entities, roles and social accounts. The end result is a rich graph of company data. To deal with the complexity that comes with rich data, Atoka finds information from disparate sources, in wildly different formats with wildly different querying mechanisms so our customers don’t have to. Atoka helps them make sense of vasts amounts of data through monitoring lists and business indicators that enhance the visibility of changes and trends that are important to our customers.

Which challenge lie ahead of you?

Being able to provide rich, up-to-date and reliable information requires a lot of work finding, integrating and curating data sources. Providing insightful analysis on top of rich information requires a deep knowledge of the reality that is being modelled through that particular business indicator. We are working to build our user base in new markets standing on our knowledge of the Italian reality and acknowledging the unique needs of each one of these new markets.

Javier, do you have any final thoughts you would like to share with us?

Since you are here, you could pay us a visit on atoka.io to see what we have been working on: coverage for new jurisdictions, new kinds of data and indicators that measure interesting company-related phenomena. Try Atoka and explore all the data we integrate. Discover the many ways in which we can help you engage your prospects and convert them into happy customers.