Using commercial share of wallet to compile marketing company lists

• US 8,131,614 B2
• Filed: 08/02/2006
• Issued: 03/06/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 10/29/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: American Express Travel Related Services Company, Inc. (American Express Company)
• Original Assignee: American Express Travel Related Services Company, Inc. (American Express Company)
• Inventors: Haggerty, Kathleen, Lyon, Charles Christopher, Okoh, Benedict O., Phelan, Robert E., Ruterman, Jon Kevin, Turner, Geraldine A., Yuan, Chao M., Biswas, Arnab
• Primary Examiner(s): Hammond, III, Thomas M
• Application Number:
  US11/497,527
• Publication Number:
  US 20070067206A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,043 Days
• Field of Search: 705/10
• US Class Current: 705/35
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0201 Market modelling; Market analysis; Collecting market data
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0204 Market segmentation
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0205 Location or geographical consideration
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/00 Finance; Insurance; Tax strategies; Processing of corporate or income taxes
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/08 Insurance

Abstract

Commercial size of spending wallet (“CSoSW”) is the total business spend of a business including cash but excluding bartered items. Commercial share of wallet (“CSoW”) is the portion of the spending wallet that is captured by a particular financial company. A modeling approach utilizes various data sources to provide outputs that describe a company'"'"'s spend capacity. Marketing companies that sell lists compile those lists by searching one or more databases for names and/or businesses that match certain criteria. Those marketing companies can use the CSoW/CSoSW modeling approach to show predicted spend and/or revenues for each company on a list. This makes the list more valuable to list buyers.

Claims

1. A method for evaluating the business prospects of a company, comprising:

identifying businesses that are potential marketing targets;

modeling, by a computer-based system for evaluation of the business prospects of a company, the computer-based system comprising a computer processor and a tangible memory, industry spending patterns using individual corporate data and aggregate corporate data, including financial statement data, wherein the modeling comprises;

identifying the cost of goods sold and operating expenses from at least one of the individual corporate data and the aggregate corporate data;

at least one of identifying the cardable operating expenses from the operating expenses and identifying a cardable operating expenses ratio from aggregate corporate data;

at least one of summing the cardable operating expenses with the cost of goods sold and summing the cost of goods sold with the product of operating expenses and the cardable operating expenses ratio;

for each identified business, estimating, by the computer-based system, a commercial size of spending wallet of the business based on, at least, known financial statement data of the business, total known business spending of the business, and the model of industry spending patterns, wherein the commercial size of spending wallet is the total cardable business spending of the business and wherein the model of industry spending patterns is used to infer financial statement data and spending data that is not known; and

rating, by the computer-based system, each business based on, at least, the commercial size of spending wallet of the business.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the identifying step comprises:

identifying businesses that are potential marketing targets based on at least one of the following parameters;

location, size, revenue, and industry.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

using the ratings to prioritize the marketing targets.

4. A computer-based system for identifying and rating marketing targets, comprising:

a tangible processor; and

a tangible, non-transitory memory in communication with the processor for storing a plurality of instructions for directing the processor to

identify businesses that are potential marketing targets;

model industry spending patterns using individual corporate data and aggregate corporate data, including financial statement data, wherein the model is produced using a method comprising;

identifying the cost of goods sold and operating expenses from at least one of the individual corporate data and the aggregate corporate data;

at least one of identifying the cardable operating expenses from the operating expenses and identifying a cardable operating expenses ratio from aggregate corporate data;

at least one of summing the cardable operating expenses with the cost of goods sold and summing the cost of goods sold with the product of operating expenses and the cardable operating expenses ratio;

for each identified business, estimate a commercial size of spending wallet of the business based on, at least, known financial statement data of the business, total known business spending of the business, and the model of industry spending patterns, wherein the commercial size of spending wallet is the total cardable business spending of the business, and wherein the model of industry spending patterns is used to infer financial statement data and spending data that is not known; and

rate each business based on, at least, the commercial size of spending wallet of the business.

5. The system of claim 4, wherein the plurality of instructions for directing the processor to identify businesses that are potential marketing targets comprise instructions to

identify businesses that are potential marketing targets based on at least one of the following parameters:

location, size, revenue, and industry.

6. The system of claim 4, wherein the plurality of instructions for directing the processor further comprises instructions to prioritize the marketing targets based on the ratings.

7. An article of manufacture including a non-transitory computer readable medium having instructions stored thereon that, in response to execution by a computing device, cause the computing device to perform operations comprising:

identifying businesses that are potential marketing targets;

modeling, by a computer-based system for evaluation of the business prospects of a company, the computer-based system comprising a computer processor and a tangible memory, industry spending patterns using individual corporate data and aggregate corporate data, including financial statement data, wherein the modeling comprises;

identifying the cost of goods sold and operating expenses from at least one of the individual corporate data and the aggregate corporate data;

at least one of identifying the cardable operating expenses from the operating expenses and identifying a cardable operating expenses ratio from aggregate corporate data;

at least one of summing the cardable operating expenses with the cost of goods sold and summing the cost of goods sold with the product of operating expenses and the cardable operating expenses ratio;

for each identified business, estimating, by the computer-based system, a commercial size of spending wallet of the business based on, at least, known financial statement data of the business, total known business spending of the business, and the model of industry spending patterns, wherein the commercial size of spending wallet is the total cardable business spending of the business, and wherein the model of industry spending patterns is used to infer financial statement data and spending data that is not known; and

rating, by the computer-based system, each business based on, at least, the commercial size of spending wallet of the business.