Chinese businesses send message with professional reports
Companies have come to realize that communicating with investors and the public requires more than pretty pictures, Li Yang reports
Chinese companies seeking to raise their international profiles are realizing the importance of clear communication through financial reports and corporate social responsibility statements.
To tell their stories to the people who buy their products and their shares, they’re tur ning to professional financial printing companies, such as Hong Kong-based Toppan Vite Ltd.
At an awards ceremony in Beijing last week, three of the company’s clients from the Chinese mainland — China Mobile Ltd, Shenhua Group Corp Ltd and Nestle (China) Ltd — were recognized in the International Annual Report Competition Award.
The honor is one of the best-known global awards for annual reports and CSR statements that best communicate companies’ visions and values.
The awards are given out by MerComm Inc, a United States- based independent award organization that seeks to promote excellence in the communications field and recognize outstanding individual contributions.
“We did not expect to win the award for the CSR report produced by Toppan Vite. But it’s still good publicity for our company,” Jenny Ge, assistant manager of special projects at Nestle (China), said.
She displayed the winning report, which bears the photograph of a smiling coffee farmer in Yunnan, China, on the cover.
Ringo Mo, general manager of Toppan Vite’s sales and marketing division, delivered the awards to those honored and expressed his optimism about the market for corporate communications and professional printing.
“Beijing and Shanghai will attract more foreign companies and become the nation’s most important international business hubs. As our main clients come to China, we’ll naturally follow them here,” he said.
All kinds of Chinese companies are important potential clients for his company, he added.
Before professional financial printing companies came to the Chinese mainland, annual reports and prospectuses for new issues were usually handled by general advertising agencies. Back then, companies regarded financial reports as marketing tools.
But now, annual reports are expected to fulfill roles related to corporate governance and transparency as well.
What distinguishes financial printers from ad agencies? Tough requirements for confidentiality and intensive communication with clients, among other factors.
According to Mo, all of Toppan Vite’s employees must sign a disclosure agreements to ensure clients’ business secrets are kept confidential.
After working in the business for 27 years, the company has developed daily routines for employees, which are intended to deliver printing with the highest quality, accuracy, reliability and value.
In 2012, Toppan Vite held a 24 percent market share of IPO prospectuses in Hong Kong and more than 57 percent in Singapore. Revenue for the year was about HK$300 million ($38.7 million).
“The professional financial printing market in China is still in its infancy,” said Mo, who set up the Beijing branch six years ago.
“We would like to see more competitors from the Chinese mainland. We will see more, for sure.”
Revenues on the mainland have risen 20 percent in each of the past three years, reaching 30 million yuan ($4.9 million) in 2012. The company has about 100 corporate clients in China, 20 percent of which are foreign companies.
“The robust momentum will be maintained for years to come, along with the stable growth and transformation of the Chinese economy,” said Beck Chu, an account manager of Amicorp, an outsourcing and financial services firm that is also Toppan Vite’s partner in Beijing.
“We have seen too many public relations firms, advertising agencies and similar communications companies, which boast of their ability to serve clients’ needs. But the companies would like to see a professional financial printer that only publishes financial reports”, said Shine Neo, business promotion manager of the Beijing Rongzhi Corporate Social Responsibility Institute.
Professionalism is the heart of competitiveness in this printing market segment, he added.
Ian Yap, creative director of Toppan Vite in Singapore, has designed and produced corporate annual reports for 20 years, starting when the work required “pens, paper, glue, rulers and cutters”.
Yap said: “We read a company’s financial reports from the past five to 10 years. Then we show how to make it different and new this year”, Yap noted.
Successful financial reports and CSR statements should convey a good understanding of a company, which can be achieved by thorough research into a client and intensive communication.
Two to six designers work with photographers, graphics editors, writers and the communications department, which acts as the liaison with client companies.
Working with masses of material from a client’s law and accounting firms, and its corporate public relations department, Toppan Vite takes one to three months to produce an annual report, according to Yap.
Each annual report is unique. The graphic images, colors, designs, typefaces and even the types of paper that makes up a document are decided by what each company wants to convey to its readers.
“We have to ‘educate’ some new clients who have never had a well- designed annual report, to let them know how we work and why our work is important.”
Although everything’s now online, Yap still thinks his work is valuable. He doesn’t worry about plagiarism, he said, because a high-quality financial report is unique to the company that it was deigned for.“
The Chinese mainland market is exciting and has huge potential. We are trying to inject thought- provoking designs, instead of just using nice colors and pictures,” said Yap.
“Since the State- owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission told State-owned enterprises to assume more social responsibility, we have seen a jump in the CSR report market,” said Mo.
“I am sure the market will boom in the next few years, with strong demand from the energy, mining, power sectors in China.”
Both Mo and Yap believe that professional financial printers from around the world will find huge business opportunities in China. They cite China’s reform of its IPO policies, the China (Shanghai) Pilot Free Trade Zone, the overseas expansion of Chinese companies and the market reform of SOEs as factors generating opportunities.
Although the Chinese government doesn’t supervise or regulate the financial printing industry yet, “I think the authorities, say the China Securities Regulatory Commission, will issue guidelines for the sound development of the market,” Mo said. Contact the writer at liyang@ chinadaily.com.cn