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View from the bridge

Green Hills

Insights and links

These are our insights, or those of others we want to share, and also bridges to sites of interest, importance or further insight.

 

We produce thought-leadership articles on topics that we are working on or that have caught our eye. If there is something that you would like us to have a look at for a View from the Bridge piece, get in touch and we will give it our attention. 

Time for a reboot of the business model?

It seems that the quality of the strategic narrative in the annual report, the bit about how a company is planning to grow and create wealth, is creaking at the seams from neglect, misunderstanding and the famous regulatory boot.

6 August 2025

Elephant redux

What has ESG disclosure done to the latest crop of annual reports? Is it driving ever-increasing size or is something else happening?

17 July 2025

An elephant, a skeleton and a gorilla walk into a bar…

With its importance not in doubt, ESG nonetheless presents some serious dilemmas for corporate reporting. Here are three, with some suggestions for their resolution.

26 June 2025

Time for the corporate world to engage its buccaneering spirit.

There is a crisis in annual reporting; a thousand days of work and £2,000,000 a pop for poor communication driven by regulatory indecision and confusion is madness.

13 June 2025

Seeing the wood for the trees - Part 1- the Section 172(1) Statement

A Section 172(1) Statement is not specifically about stakeholder engagement, it is about the Board’s decision-making. Which may, or may not, have been informed by engagement. Think rationales and outcomes, not process and protocols – insight.

27 May 2025

Reducing decision risk - Part 5 - Canaries

Lack of compliance, particularly with statutory requirements and especially unforced or unnecessary errors, can act as a useful indicator of problems to a reader of reports.

16 May 2025

Reducing decision risk - Part 4 - Sequence

A familiar and logical sequence enables the recipient to rapidly assimilate and understand what is being presented to them. Some report structures could politely be described as “a bit random”. What can be done?

9 May 2025

Reducing decision risk - Part 3 - Storytelling

“Nobody reads it all, but all of it is read” was the opinion of the FT a few years ago. This might now be, “Nobody reads it much at all, because it is nearly unreadable”. We take a look at the readability of Annual Reports.

22 April 2025

Reducing decision risk - Part 2 - Stakeholders

Who are the stakeholders being engaged with and how? We are hearing a lot about storytelling in annual reports, so a clear understanding who these rapt audiences are seems to be an appropriate step.

10 April 2025

Reducing decision risk - Part 1

Is this the fundamental reason for investor communication? And, possibly, any form of stakeholder engagement? This is the first of our series on content in reporting.

24 March 2025

Perfecting a Digital Format - Part 3

Digitally-savvy or all the gear and no idea? The trends in design practicalities impacting Annual Reports may not be delivering as intended.

17 March 2025

Perfecting a Digital Format - Part 2

Interactive PDFs are becoming the dominant form of PDF used for presenting Annual Reports. But their useful functionalities are not always exploited to full advantage.

6 March 2025

Perfecting a Digital Format - Part 1

PDF is the prevalent format for annual reports, so it needs to work hard and well. Some do, many don't. Here are some ways to establish digital credibility.

12 February 2025

The purpose of Purpose: an existential statement or conflicted virtue signalling?

We are less than convinced that many of the stated Purposes are what they need to be: they seem to be something else. This article is intended to stimulate thinking and conversation around this business-critical issue. 

Working in collaboration with JLC Investor Relations

14 November 2024

Tis the season…….for Annual Reports

Despite the significance of the Annual Report, the sheer complexity of what is being presented can often leave readers questioning its coherence, or even its relevance. We discuss some things to think about in order to produce a narrative that is compelling, fair, balanced and understandable.

Working in collaboration with JLC Investor Relations

16 October 2024

Best practice in annual reporting

Part of the problem with 'best practice' is that many preparers of annual reports are pathologically risk averse, time-pressured and have a day job to do. This, when short of expert advice and assistance, is a recipe for very average, rather than best, practice reporting.

Working in collaboration with CBG:together

08 August 2024

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