Smart Media wins gold awards for Annual Reports

By a Special Correspondent

One of the Sunday newspapers last week published a tabulation of the Gold Award winners at the recently concluded Annual Report awards competition by the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Sri Lanka (ICASL). Of the 20 Gold Awards, 13 were accounted for by clients whose Annual Reports were produced by Smart Media. This also included both companies who emerged joint overall winners. The balance seven Gold's were shared between three different organisations that produced these reports in the proportion of three, three and one. Here is an interview with Dr. Vijith Kannangara, founder of Smart Media.

Q: How would you introduce Smart Media?

A: Smart Media is widely acknowledged for pioneering the business of producing Annual Reports in Sri Lanka. Even today, there is no comparable company to Smart Media even in neighbouring India who is streets ahead of Sri Lanka in most other areas of media and communications. The South Asian Federation of Accountants conducts a regional competition to identify the best annual reports in the South Asian region. On three of the four occasions that it was awarded, an Annual Report produced by Smart Media emerged the overall winner.

Q: Does Smart Media produce the majority of Annual Reports in Sri Lanka?

A: Judging by the number of Gold awards, it seems like Smart Media's market leadership is one that is unchallenged. However, a perusal of the top 50 capitalised companies in the Colombo Stock Exchange would reveal a different picture. Unlike in the case of the Gold Awards where Smart Media commands a near 70% market share; of the top 50 companies, Smart Media would be producing just over 15. If one looks at the top 100 companies, Smart Media's contribution would be even more insignificant. There is a reason for this. We have geared Smart Media to produce the Avant-garde annual reports.

Over the years, Smart Media has had to refuse more reports than it undertook. You cannot lead without attracting followers. Yet, Smart Media remains in a league of its own and the followers tend to cater to the second tier. Considering the large number of enquiries that we had to let pass, we felt that there was a need for a 'Smart Media' solution for the second tier as well. Thus, in September last year, Smart Media set up a subsidiary by the name and style of VisageSpice.

The second tier of the market is the larger segment by far in terms of numbers of annual reports. What I mean is not second tier in terms of the size or the stature of the company but only in terms of the standard of their annual report. Some very large and prominent companies would by choice opt to be in the second tier as they don't need an elaborate annual report. In its first 12-months of operations, VisageSpice produced over 15 annual reports and one of these even won a Gold award at the ICASL awards.

Q: Can you elaborate further on why Smart Media set up a subsidiary in the same business of producing annual reports?

A: Our intention is to strengthen what Smart Media has always stood for. That is to constantly develop the annual reports that Smart Media undertakes, stretch the limits and constantly add value. We have found that clients are willing to pay the premium when they can perceive the value. And value is not just perceived by the awards that clients win for their reports. More importantly, it is by the response clients get from the different publics that they want to address through their annual reports.