Smart Media redefines annual reports, achieves global recognition

Smart Media – The Annual Report Company – continued its exceptional performance on the world stage with outstanding results at the League of American Communications Professionals (LACP) Vision Awards 2010.  

The company, whose businesses span six countries – including Sri Lanka, Oman, Bahrain, Qatar, the UAE and Hong Kong – announced this at an event to  felicitate and recognise their Sri Lankan clients, whose latest annual reports won awards at the LACP Vision Awards.

Smart Media also announced that it had won the Gold Award for the worldwide agency of the year for annual reports. The Chief Guest for the evening was Ajith Nivard Cabraal, the Governor of the Central Bank of Sri Lanka, who gave away the awards.

Several Sri Lankan companies brought honour to the country by winning a number of awards including five Bronze Awards, four Silver Awards, four Gold Awards and three Platinum Awards in their respective sectors.

In addition these companies had clinched three Special Achievement Awards at an Asia Pacific regional level competition. The National Savings Bank Annual Report achieved international recognition by clinching a Special Achievement Award across all sectors.

Five companies’ annual reports were ranked among the top 50 annual reports in the Asia Pacific region across all sectors. They are: Nations Trust Bank at No. 49, LOLC at No. 47, Commercial Bank at No. 24, Diesel & Motor Engineering at No. 16 and National Savings Bank at No. 2. Three were ranked among the top 100 annual reports in the World across all sectors. They are:  Commercial Bank at No. 91, Diesel & Motor Engineering at No.62, and National Savings Bank at No. 04.   

It was noted that these annual reports were rubbing shoulders with regional and international heavyweights such as Hyundai of Korea, Kia Motors of Korea, China Telecom, Panasonic Corporation, Korean Air, Korea Exchange Bank, Bank of China, Nippon Television Network, the U.S Department of State, Bayer AG and Thompson Reuters among other notable corporate players.

In his address, Cabraal said: “I wish to congratulate Dr. Vijith Kannangara and his team for putting together such an extraordinary array of annual reports and displaying them in such a remarkable fashion that has won for them awards worldwide. This shows the spirit and ability of Sri Lankans. The ‘Mahinda Chinthana’ has a chapter devoted to the subject of empowering small companies to become medium scale companies and medium scale companies to become conglomerates whilst the higher echelon companies can aspire to be global players.”

“Sri Lanka Inc. is a very important way of describing the combined journey of us all. Sri Lanka Inc. has a wonderful paradigm to work on. We have shown the world that we can move forward. I congratulate all the companies who have been able to do so well. I hope that more companies will come forward and work together to take Sri Lanka forward,” Cabraal added.

Speaking at the occasion, Chairman of Smart Media Dr. Kannangara said: “There is a considerable gap between perception of the international financial community and ground reality when it comes to the quality of business in frontier markets such as ours. Well presented annual reports could indeed play an important part in overcoming this negative perception.”

Continuing, Dr. Kannangara added: “LACP is one of the two largest and most respected global annual report judging and awarding events. This year, a record number of entries – over 5,000 all told – were received. This speaks of the universal interest and focus being displayed by institutions across the world, to raise the standards of their annual reports as they see more ways in which they may work for their companies at different forums.”

“In addition to the 28 awards that our clients in Sri Lanka have won at LACP, our international clients have won another 11 awards. I have just returned from a whirlwind business tour during which I had the honour of meeting and felicitating four of our award winning overseas clients, namely, Oman Air, the National Carrier of Oman; Qatar Financial Centre Regulatory Authority; Batelco, Bahrain's No.1 telecom service provider; and Ithmaar Bank, a premier Islamic Retail Bank based in the Gulf. We are proud to play our part in building the ‘Sri Lanka Incorporated’ brand through the award winning work for our clients at home. We are prouder still to be taking Sri Lankan enterprise to the top echelons of the world, in such a high involvement and high value product as the annual report. I make no bones about it when I say that we are indeed proud to be recognised as No. 1 in the world in what we do.”

Explaining what Smart Media meant by paradigm change, Dr. Kannangara said: “Readers would like to see annual reports saying something useful; and saying it in a brief and interesting manner.  Instead, annual reports today are getting thicker and thicker to a point where they aspire to be encyclopaedias. But for all the flab, they hardly ever say anything useful. Companies today are simply stuck in a compliance mindset and are failing miserably to communicate. And in those rare instances that they do communicate something, they hardly ever give a clue about the future. So it is not surprising that the reader tends to judge a company from year to year, or worse, from quarter to quarter. But if companies make a genuine effort to make themselves better understood, they would end up having a loyal following in both good times and bad.”

Receiving awards on behalf of their respective companies were:

Pradeep Kariyawasam, Chairman and H.M. Hennayake Bandara, GM/CEO of NSB; Dr. Gamini Wickramasinghe, Chairman of BOC; Tilak Wijeyekera, DGM Marketing of Seylan Bank; B.R.L Fernando; Chairman of CIC Mohan Pandithage; Chairman of Hayleys Ranjith Pandithage; Chairman of Dimo, Deshabandu Tilak de Zoysa; Chairman of HelpAge Sri Lanka; Rohini Nanayakkara, Chairperson and Sunjeevani Kotakadeniya, CFO of LOLC; K.U. Pushpakumara, Acting GM/CEO and Yohan Soza, Head of Finance of People’s Bank; Saliya Rajakaruna, CEO of NTB; Kavi Seneviratne, Managing Director of Kelani Valley Plantations; Krishan Tillekeratne, CEO of LOLC Al-Falaah; Prasanna Indrajith, AGM Finance and M.P. Dharmasiri, Chief Manager Finance of Commercial Bank; S.T. Gunetilleke, CEO of Talawakelle Tea Estates; Jeevani Abeyratne, Director Finance of Haycarb; and Ajith Kumara, Manager Finance of DPL.

Established over 15 years ago, Smart Media is today a leader in producing world class annual reports for companies in several regions. The company has produced a number of annual reports for clients across a wide spectrum of industries.

Pix by Upul Abayasekara