A 5 percent improvement in the accuracy ratio is achieved when supply-chain variables were added to the benchmark credit-rating prediction model, which didn't contain supply-chain factors. In addition, the team found that their model can predict credit ratings reasonably well by using supply chain information alone without the focal firm's attributes. "This suggests that our approach has the potential to apply to a large number of companies whose financial information is not publicly available, such as SMEs," Prof. Wu remarks.