As a unique niche player in corporate reporting, C&F Report provides numerous annual reports – from sustainability reports and financial reports to complete integrated reports. This requires a meticulous and structured process. Deadlines and publication dates cannot be tampered with, confidentiality is crucial and good cooperation between all parties involved is paramount. How do you manage all this now? In this blog, Pieter Koenders of C&F Report explains: “Qonqord offered us the opportunity to deploy a workflow with Woodwing Studio. This workflow is now fully aligned with what we do: corporate reporting.”
“Working in the same system at the same time”
In the traditional client-agency relationship, cumbersomeness is rampant: the client provides information, the agency prepares a report and then the document is sent back and forth several times before it is ready for publication. “That ping-pong process is not convenient,” says Pieter. “There are strict deadlines attached to annual reports, which means there is a lot of pressure.” That’s why C&F Report wanted to embrace a co-creation platform where everyone involved – from the customer’s finance department to the designers of C&F Report – could work together in one workflow. “That is now possible via content station, the Woodwing Studio web application. We create a layout in which the customer can make corrections himself.”
The unique thing about this co-creation platform is that, unlike variants defined from IT, it is not rigid: “This system is design-based. Everything we create in Adobe InDesign and Illustrator goes into content station. This way annual reports look great with dashboards, strategic visuals, flowcharts and catchy stories. At the same time, the customer can make changes to the text, but also to the annual accounts. All tables can be changed at the touch of a button. Within that editing and correction period, we continuously check whether everything continues to look good. When we can straighten something, we do it right away – all within the same system. That is very useful for both parties.”
“Reliable, well-functioning software”
Who did what when? That question is easy to answer with the platform. “In an interactive collaboration process, everyone works from their own competence,” says Pieter. “In addition, we work in the cloud and we can count on optimal security at the highest level. Existing reporting tools are much more dogmatic and therefore less desirable to use for these kinds of purposes.”
More and more C&F customers are switching to this co-creation 2.0. “This is very reliable, well-functioning software. Qonqord has set up the system specifically for corporate reporting and supports us on a daily basis. We are happy with that. Our design-based co-creation tool shortens lead times, is cheaper than other reporting tools and takes the look and feel of an annual report to the highest level.”
read more
