Here's a great way to add value and visibility for your credit department operations.

Like many companies, Nintendo of America, based out of Redmond, WA, tracks the stock prices and news for all of their public customers. That's fairly common, of course. But what Nintendo does with that information is what's significant.

Each morning Nintendo credit puts together a multi-page report for all senior executives with all the news stories for the day, including all the top stories on Nintendo and their competitors, and articles about their markets, finance, the economy, and information about their top accounts, their licensees, developers, and partners. To get the reports, they plug in key words through Yahoo.

The report is always at least 10 pages long, occasionally up to 30 pages. It's a popular report, with the routing list getting bigger every day. If it doesn't come out in time, they will get calls from people wondering where it is. Once a week, they do a 'top 30 report,' based on their top 30 customers, in which they will write about any issues on these largest accounts.