SCOTBIS – Scottish Business Information Service

Howard Lake | 8 March 2010 | Blogs

I see from the latest (free) newsletter from the Scottish Business Information Service (SCOTBIS – www.scotbis.com) that they can provide you with company and market data, mailing lists, news articles and access to a range of business databases. Some of these are available for free access at home or work, if you register with them. SCOTBIS is based at the National Library of Scotland. They are also providing free workshops at 2 pm and 6 pm on Wednesday 24 March 2010, at the National Library of Scotland.
Global Reference Solution is produced by Dun & Bradstreet and contains records on 100 million companies worldwide. Access is available to Scottish residents on a read-only basis. If you require records to be downloaded, SCOTBIS staff can do this for you at a cost of 10 pence per company record downloaded into an Excel spreadsheet or £1.00 for a PDF document of an individual company record. VAT is applied to the total. There is a £6.00 minimum charge for supply of data.
Frost & Sullivan contains over 4,000 market research reports on aerospace, defence, chemicals, energy, food technology, healthcare and IT. The reports can be viewed in full and be printed off on a page by page basis. To access Frost & Sullivan, you must hold a valid card for the National Library of Scotland.
COBRA is a business encyclopaedia covering all aspects of starting and running a business. From writing a business plan to expanding an existing business, COBRA contains around 4,000 factsheets, market reports, contacts, and sources of funding and support to help entrepreneurs and their advisers. You must be resident in Scotland to access this product and have a Library card.
You can also obtain a library card for the National Library of Scotland to get, free access to all the business resources. You can register online to start the registration process before you visit. This will shorten the time it will take for them to issue your library card on your first visit. You must provide evidence of identity (see website for details) when you apply for your card at Readers’ Registration.
As part of the fee-based research service SCOTBIS offers free downloads of up to 1,000 company records per month for any company signing up to the annual subscription service at a cost of £200.
Finbar Cullen
ResearchPlus

About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale. He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.