Demand for insightful information sparks fast forward on reporting change

Olympics-mania has struck and it may be holiday season in some countries, but work on a new reporting model that will address today’s and tomorrow’s issues has gathered pace. This probably stems from more people recognising the need for an upgraded scope of corporate information to properly inform decisions.

An outline of the basic structure of the Integrated Reporting Framework was published by the International Integrated Reporting Council just a few weeks ago, with promises to soon follow up with a prototype of what reporting using this framework might look like.  In September, we also expect companies who have been involved in the IIRC’s pilot programme to share insights from their experiments with information and reporting.

At PwC in the UK, we have been assessing company reporting in the run up to our Building Public Trust Awards for excellence in reporting and I have been impressed with just how fast some companies are making changes that make a real difference to investors’ understanding of their business (and their valuations). Take a look at what the Shanks Group has been doing, for example, to show how it creates and preserves value and what investors thought of their new-style reporting.

And it’s clear that improvements in the quality of reporting is not just a UK phenomenon with many companies around the world realising benefits from looking carefully at the information needs of their boards and important stakeholders. That’s why we are introducing a new international award for the first time this year for excellence in integrated reporting – we will be announcing the winner in early October.

Having said that, moving to effective and integrated information and reporting is not a sprint – it’s an ongoing fitness programme! And we can all benefit from sharing our experiences of what works well.  There are some useful perspectives in the recent edition of World Watch magazine on governance and reporting.

As always, do please keep in touch - I really value your responses to this blog.

BFN

Charles