Annual Reports that
Mean Business
Demonstrating a more effective and professional approach to financial and corporate reporting, Smart Media The Annual Report Company can help your organisation report and communicate more effectively in print, video, on the web and through mobile media.

Focusing on key strategic and financial elements in reporting, we will help you present a mountain of statutory and supplementary disclosures in an innovative, lucid and compelling story that meets your business objectives, while also being an interesting read.

Reporting 3.0: Annual Reports for the Global Village
22 October 2012

Smart Media Chairman Dr. Vijith Kannangara delivered a keynote address on "Stakeholder Reporting Best Practices on the other side of the world" and on the Smart Media methodology that was used to produce Asia's first integrated report at the convention preceding the exhibition of the Best Annual Reports of the World at the Museum of Arts and Crafts in Hamburg.

Smart Media presented the genesis of the first integrated annual report in Asia
at the International Integrated Reporting Conference of the Confederation of Asian and Pacific Accountants. 21 October 2012

Jonathan Labrey, Director, International Integrated Reporting Council delivered the keynote speech titled "An Overview of Integrated Reporting". This was followed by two panel sessions.

Panel Session 1:

Will Integrated Reporting get off the ground?

  • Why is it important?
  • What are the benefits?
  • Who wants it?
  • What are the challenges and barriers?

Panelists

  • Dr. S.K. Gupta, India
  • Dr. Andrew Conway, Australia
  • Mr. Mark Spofforth, UK
  • Mr. Anwaruddin Chowdhury, Bangladesh


Panel Session 2:

What is needed to implement Integrated Reporting?

  • Experiences and examples, including pilot programmes?
  • Lessons learnt

Panelists

  • Mr. Robert Thomason, Australia
  • Mr. Neil Stevenson, UK
  • Dr. Vijith Kannangara, Sri Lanka
  • Mr. M. Iqbal Ghori, Pakistan
  • Mr. Prabhakar Kalavacheria, India
Ananda Jagoda, Chief Creative Officer of Smart Media The Annual Report Company received the RedDot award in Berlin, Germany on October 24, 2012.

Red Dot Design Awards 2012

The Red Dots are a set of international product and communication design prizes awarded annually by Design ZentrumNordrheinWestfalen (Nordrhein Design Centre), Germany. It is a globally recognised qualification and communications centre for industry, politics and society. Red Dot Awards have been presented since 1955 for achievements in the fields of corporate design, advertising, interactive media and sound design, and are considered under the three categories comprising product design/design team, communication design/design agency, and design concept.

We won our third Red Dot this year.
Sashini Gajanayake and Raja Senanayake of Smart Media The Annual Report Company together with Joshua Ong, Director Global-Asia Hub, Capacity Building Division of Singapore Business Federation draw the winner of the New iPad on day 1 of GES 2012
in Singapore.
Alan Tan Wing Wton, Director ASEAN and South Asia, Global Business Division of Singapore Business Federation and Ms. Bahar Erdogan, International Media Coordinator of Sharjah Media Centre draw the winner of the New iPad on day 2 of GES 2012 in Singapore.

Global Entrepolis@Singapore
23 - 25 October 2012

Heralding the entry into Singapore, Smart Media
The Annual Report Company became a sponsor of the Global Entrepolis@Singapore 2012 which was held from
23 - 25 October 2012 at the Resorts World Sentosa.

This leading business leaders' forum is an annual business platform which brings together a community of regional business leaders, entrepreneurs, high net-worth individuals and policy makers for a series of highly focused discussions on the latest outlook on global markets, business model trends, innovative ideas and new approaches to growth in an ever-shifting economic landscape.

Corporate Sri Lanka's 'A Team'
1 November 2012

Smart Media's Chairman Dr. Vijith Kannangara was picked by LMD as one of the top ten captains of business, commerce and industry in Sri Lanka in 2012.

About Smart Media The Annual Report Company

History

From its beginnings in Colombo, Sri Lanka in 1994, Smart Media The Annual Report Company has championed a strategic, communications-based approach to financial and corporate reporting.

As the practice of supplementary presentation "beyond the numbers" grew in popularity with firms around the world, a variety of competing "standard reporting formats" gained traction. In our opinion, none of these formats offered a one-size-fits all solution.

Instead, Smart, by now the leader in its home market, chose to develop a reporting approach based on the use, with adaptation, of the most appropriate reporting format for a given client and/or strategic situation. We begin every commission with a clean slate and an open mind.

Over the years, we have used this approach to help clients in South Asia and the Middle East produce harder-working, more strategically effective annual reports and other corporate communications material.

Today, Smart Media The Annual Report Company brings this more effective and professional approach to developing and producing annual reports to clients in Singapore and the ASEAN Region.

Philosophy

Traditionally, private and public firms alike favoured a "need-to-know" approach to financial and corporate reporting. Few went beyond the boundaries of statutory disclosure. Then, in the 1980s, firms began to see statutory reports as a medium for communicating corporate and even marketing messages. Company annual reports began to resemble product brochures and sales catalogues.

Over the next two decades, statutory and regulatory authorities drove a trend towards enhanced reporting on corporate governance, regulatory compliance and risk management. Organisations discovered that a more open approach to reporting was good for public and stakeholder relations. Thus began the era of triple-bottom-line reporting, with firms reporting their impacts on society and the environment as well as their operational and financial performance.

Today, firms face a bewildering variety of regulatory requirements and disclosure options. Most cope with the confusion by adopting an ad hoc approach and relying on the magic of imaginative graphic design to make their reports stand out. Design and print production houses tend to encourage this, since it plays to their greatest strength: visualisation.

To us, however, this buffet of disclosure options and reporting formats represents an opportunity for firms to custom-tailor their annual and other reports to be media of strategic communications. By selecting the right disclosure options and formats, we make your reports work harder, communicating exactly what you want to say to shareholders, investors and others. This is not simply about image, but about communications in support of business objectives and goals.

We acknowledge the central importance of design but always in the service of good communications. We believe in corporate reporting that means business.

To see how we realise this philosophy on behalf of our clients, take a look at some case studies.
What We Offer

Custom Development and Design

There's no need to keep reinventing the wheel, but every new car is still designed from the ground up.

Annual report design and development must respect the boundaries set by statute and regulation. This still leaves considerable freedom in a firm's choice of what to disclose and why, what reporting format to follow and how to present the selected information most effectively and compellingly.

Before we help our clients make these decisions, we ask a lot of questions. What are the firm's strategic objectives? What considerations arise from operations and performance over the reporting period? What were the most important of the year's developments and how best to present them? What were the effects of pertinent economic, social and environmental factors?

From the answers, we use tried and tested methodologies to work out how best can we tailor your report to help meet the agreed communications objectives - which reporting format and design approach is most appropriate, what considerations of style, tone and presentation pertain. Everything must serve the communications objectives, everything must work in synergy - yet we must never be boring. The report should be a pleasure to look at, to hold, to read.

There are no off-the-peg solutions at Smart Media The Annual Report Company. We don't reinvent the wheel, but after producing over 1,500 annual reports for our clients, we still start afresh every time.

Technical Expertise in Reporting

Quite apart from the writing, design and print management skills any good design house should be able to offer, Smart Media The Annual Report Company offers advice and expertise on the technical side of reporting itself. This includes:

  • advice on what reporting guidelines or formats to adopt and adapt
  • consultant support in developing systems and procedures to generate the necessary data
  • advice on presenting corporate governance and risk-management rules, procedures and data
  • support for meaningful sustainability reporting and strategies

Proficiency in New and Traditional Media

We employ a design and production approach that integrates with ease a suite of media options that capture the most effective way of communicating your message. The options include:

  • traditional print-based media
  • video
  • web-based media
  • mobile media
Expressions in different media are developed concurrently, with the same commitment. There are no "favoured" media or "poor relations", as each chosen medium will seamlessly complement one another with a very focused overarching business objective.

Full Range of Design and Production Skills

Smart Media The Annual Report Company is equipped with the full range of design and production skills you would expect, from strategic consultancy and project management through conceptualisation, report writing, editing and proofreading, graphic design and art direction, print and production co-ordination, and multimedia production support. We also have excellent relations with creative-input suppliers such as photographers as well as with production facilities and printers in the region.

Case Studies
It has been our good fortune that many of our clients approach the annual obligation to publish a corporate report in a spirit of daring and strategic innovation. Featured below are some recent annual reports, all produced for such clients, of which we are especially proud.

Diesel & Motor Engineering (DIMO) PLC (Sri Lanka)

In 2011, DIMO produced the first integrated annual report ever to be published in Asia. The concept was further developed the following year. The object was to demonstrate the firm's performance and prospects, as well as to discuss its governance and risk-management framework, in relation to its eight strategic imperatives. An important central message was the Company's commitment to treat every stakeholder as an integral part of the business.

These integrated reports have received due recognition at the LACP and ARC Awards, and are now treated as global case studies.

Ithmaar Bank (Bahrain)

The challenging communications task before Ithmaar Bank was to present stakeholders with the rationale for a major reorganisation that took place in the wake of the global financial crisis that commenced in 2008. The story had to be told simply and candidly, without jargon, to Ithmaar shareholders from all walks of life. Our essay on Islamic finance formed the strategic centre-piece of the report. New reporting areas were entered into: the measurement and voluntary disclosure of the Bank's carbon footprint was probably a first for the Middle East. The theme and surreal visual communications are an integral part of the whole, blending seamlessly with the writing.

Like its 2010 predecessor, the 2011 Ithmaar Annual Report won several LACP and ARC Awards. It was ranked among the Top 50 Annual Reports in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) in the LACP 2012 rankings.

LOLC Group (Sri Lanka)

Having begun life as a leasing firm specialising in heavy plant and machinery, LOLC gradually transformed itself into a broadbased financial services provider involved in everything from vehicle leasing to stockbroking to rural microfinance. In 2011, through a series of strategic acquisitions, it moved beyond being a pure financial services provider to become a business conglomerate with investments in a number of identified growth areas. The firm's 2011 Annual Report - a SmartReport - was designed and written utilising the print, web, video and mobile media that were effectively interwoven to present the 'new face' of the LOLC Group.

NDB Bank (Sri Lanka)

The structure and content of the NDB Bank Annual Report 2011 was built ground up through a process of immersion and exploration by Smart Media into the operations of the Bank. The Management Discussion in particular has a unique structure, as well as a style of writing designed to bring out the strengths of the Bank and explain how they are being leveraged to leapfrog into the future. This Annual Report won a total of six LACP and ARC Awards in 2012. LACP ranked it at No. 32 among all reports submitted from around the world, and No. 6 from the Asia-Pacific Region.

Qatar Financial Centre Regulatory Authority (Qatar)

The Qatar Financial Centre Regulatory Authority's 2011 Annual Report was the first of its kind in the Middle East: it incorporated video segments together with print, web and mobile versions - in a suite of complementary formats designed to address diverse users in the medium of their choice. The key communications objective was to emphasise the Authority's key role in building international business confidence in Qatar through the introduction of a regulatory regime built upon international best practices and a sensitivity to local business and cultural traditions.

The Annual Report won several awards at both LACP and ARC Awards Programmes, including a Gold for its non-English version. It also made it to the Top 50 Annual Reports in the EMEA Region in LACP's 2012 rankings.
Industry Recognition

Producing Award-Winning Work for Our Clients

Over the past four years, reports produced by Smart Media The Annual Report Company have been honoured with a number of international awards. On this page, we present a summary.
174 Awards including 9 "Oscars"
(Grand Awards) and 57
Gold Awards.

Platinum Achievement Award
2010 and 2012.
The ARC Awards were established by MerComm Inc. in 1987 to honour overall excellence in annual reports, as well as to encourage vital writing and imaginative, original design. Submissions are judged by a panel of top-level investor relations executives, financial executives, writers, designers and photographers from over 90 different agencies and corporations around the world.
129 Awards

In 2012 annual reports of three clients ranked within the Global Top 100, two within the Top 50 of the Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) Region and six within the Top 50 of the Asia Pacific Region

Platinum Award for Asia Pacific Agency of the Year 2010 and 2011.

Gold Award for Worldwide Agency of the Year 2010 and 2011.

The League of American Communications Professionals was established in 2001 to discuss "best in class" practices and recognise professionals, worldwide, who demonstrate exemplary communications capabilities. Its yearly Vision Awards recognise and reward the world's best annual reports. All aspects of reporting are identified and evaluated through a proprietary judging and scoring system.
3 Red Dot Awards

The Red Dots are international product-design prizes awarded annually by the world-renowned Nordrhein Design Centre in Westphalia, Germany. Red Dot Awards have been presented since 1955 for achievements in a number of categories in the fields of corporate design, advertising, interactive media and sound design.
Reports of two clients in the
Global Top 300 since 2010.

Two more clients within the
next best 200.

ReportWatch ratings are produced by enterprise.com (e.com), a UK-based business consultancy that specialises in corporate reporting. The ratings are based on "an international, independent, integrated, content-based and competitive approach" to assess and compare annual reports, in print and online, as well as other investor information instruments and market communication tools.
Contact Us
Smart Media (Pvt) Ltd
100, Horton Place
Colombo 7
Sri Lanka.

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: +94 11 2689580
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: +94 11 2678271

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