THE MOST IMPORTANT STORY YOU’LL TELL THIS YEAR

YOUR INTEGRATED REPORT MAY VERY WELL PUT YOUR STAKEHOLDERS TO SLEEP. HERE’S A GUIDE TO KEEP THEM GLUED TO THE PAGE. It comes but once a year and for most organisations it’s a chore best given to the bookworms down the passage. But it’s an expensive exercise and a prime marketing opportunity missed if it […]

WHAT MAKES YOUR INTEGRATED REPORT INTEGRATED?

Annual reports are so last year. Merely reporting on your numbers and how the business impacts its shareholders used to be pretty one-sided. Enter Integrated Reporting (IR). While IR has been around since 2002 when a Danish CEO of Novozymes decided to report on the integrated financial, environmental, social and economic significance of his business; […]

INTEGRATED REPORTING’S GOT SOUL

OR ARE YOU JUST TICKING THE BOXES? Where the good ol’ annual report was used to show off your performance, your profits (sometimes at any cost) and your way forward, integrated reporting is how you do it with heart. It’s mostly as a result of a conscious need for improvement of relationships between stakeholders, our […]

INTEGRATED REPORTING NEEDN’T BE A HEADACHE

HANDS UP WHO WANTS TO DO THE INTEGRATED REPORT THIS YEAR? Integrated reporting comes but once a year (for most). For some that’s a dreaded period of ‘where do I start’ but a necessary evil. It reared its head in 2010 and has become a broad-based framework for business and investment decisions that are long-term, […]

THE HEART AND SOUL OF RESEARCH

REFILOE HOOHLO-ZEPHYRINE BELIEVES THAT ASKING THE RIGHT QUESTIONS IS THE KEY TO A WINNING STRATEGY It’s become increasingly evident that for a brand to have heart, it needs to display bravery, guts, or as we say in seSotho: ‘Sebete’. This means not being scared to ask the right questions. Information is king after all. In […]

IMMERSION IS THE REAL DEAL

BLUE APPLE’S TANYA LOGAN ROLLS UP HER SLEEVES TO FIND OUT IF SHE CAN TRUST THE RESEARCH I am the grandchild of a Croatian grandfather who came to the country in his 30s, married a South African Croatian woman and spent the rest of his life trying very hard, but without much success, to learn […]

THE BIGGER PICTURE

BIGGER PICTURE REPORTING MAKES GOOD BUSINESS SENSE  Companies listed on the JSE, SOEs, NGOs and other acronyms who use other people’s money, issue an integrated report at the end of their financial year. Because it’s a requirement. But even if it wasn’t mandatory, would South Africa’s leading corporations go through all the trouble of putting […]

TURN THE ELEPHANT

TURN THE ELEPHANT We don’t recommend performing an appendectomy unless you’re an actual surgeon. You probably shouldn’t take an F1 car around the track at 200km/hour unless you’re a real F1 driver. And, unless you’re a structural engineer, don’t even think about building a tensegrity bridge. It’s an age-old point and you probably think we’re […]

TACKLING THE MONSTER

TACKLING THE MONSTER INTEGRATED REPORTING WORKSHOPS HELPS YOU DEFEAT IT BIT BY BIT It’s early in the year – the perfect time to think about ticking that report off your list. Before you know it, you’ll be up to your eyeballs in projects, plans and all sorts of mayhem, so this may well be your […]

BLUE APPLE AND ESS JOIN FORCES

BRINGING TOGETHER TRAINING AND PUBLISHING TO HIGHLIGHT THE IMPORTANCE OF INTEGRATED REPORTING It’s not enough anymore to just have a well-designed integrated report. Annual and integrated report publishers Blue Apple have teamed up with consultants Environmental and Sustainability Solutions (ESS) to help companies and organisations produce reports that not only tick the boxes, but tell […]