The annual report of the future

What do you see?

Shell, like many other companies, published its annual report and annual review as a stand-alone website. The website contains many highly intuitive features, such as:

• PDF generator: enables visitors to create a personal PDF document, based on the available chapters
• Downloads: the complete report in PDF and all financial data in Excel
• Popular searches: provides insight into pages visited by other users
• Chart generator: provides the possibility of drawing graphs, based on all available financial data
• Comparison with 2006 report: opens the page containing the same information in last years’ report
• Feedback option: a short questionnaire and an option to provide Shell with comments on the report
• Highlights: provides a short overview of Shell and the previous year

Why is it effective?

Until the beginning of this millennium, the annual report used to be a printed document read by financial diehards. Shell illustrates that a well-designed online annual report with meaningful functions enables various stakeholders to use information in the way they actually want to.

What’s next?

The function of the annual report, to provide a factual and verified overview of the previous year, will not disappear. But, as Shell illustrates, the online publication and distribution of annual reports creates considerable opportunities for making financial information more personal, appealing and accessible. Think of employees or job seekers, who can quickly grasp the essentials by reading a highlights section, or private investors, who can draw charts based on all the freely available financial data.

The format of the online annual report will no longer be determined by its printed precursor, but by the possibilities offered by the internet medium. This is certain to boost annual report readership.

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1 reastion on this article

Thomas Rosenmayr - 20 nov 2009 15:46

Thank you very much for this very insightful article on our report we did for Shell. I would like to point out one more very useful tool we have enhanced this report with:
The extended search function orders and indicates search hits by relevance. Highlights search phrase on each page and offering a "search header" for easy navigation within the search hits.

Best wishes
Thomas

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