woodwing

Miltton Oy, a Finnish communication consultancy firm, introduces Finnair to their proven way of producing annual reports: with WoodWing’s Smart Communications.

About Finnair
Finnair, one of the world’s oldest operating airlines, was established in 1923 and focuses on passenger transport between Europe and Asia, via Helsinki. With a workforce of 9700, Finnair Group operations cover scheduled passenger traffic and leisure traffic, technical and ground handling operations, catering, travel agencies as well as travel information and reservation services. The subsidiaries provide air traffic support services or operate in closely related areas.

The Importance of Annual Reports
An annual report is not just a company’s business card. It is also a decision document for new investors. In addition, both quarterly and annual reports are extremely important for shareholders. In short, the company finances depend on them. Inaccuracy, or missing a pre-announced publishing deadline, can have severe legal consequences.

An annual report generally consists of the company profile and the financial report. The first is typically a design intensive separate booklet, for the latter accuracy is paramount, to adhere to international accounting standards like IFRS and US GAAP.

At Finnair, the Investor Relations department is responsible for providing accurate and timely financial and forecast information to be published as the annual report.

Annual Reports the Traditional Way
Since Finnair is not a publishing company, it hires a communication agency to assist with content, photography and layout. Finnair staff from both the Investor Relations and Financal Department would provide the content, and the agency would incorporate it into the desired layout. The continuous update process of both content and design, with a pressing publication deadline, was distributed over multiple locations using e-mail, fax and even taxis. In the confusion, the agency would sometimes use an incorrect document version, or updates and corrections would not make it into the next draft. This caused many unnecessary proofing rounds.

Mr. Taneli Hassinen, Vice President Financial Communications and Investor Relations at Finnair: “Version control was a nightmare. Corrections were made but not processed. Staff members were frustrated and we lost lots of time on additional checking.”

Introduction to a Proven Way of Working
Finnair appointed Miltton Oy to assist with their annual report. Miltton is a fast growing communications consultancy firm in Finland, offering solutions for strategic planning and operational implementation of communications. They introduced Finnair to their own proven way of working. Based on many years of experience with corporate customers, Miltton proposed a solution using Adobe’s InDesign and InCopy, and WoodWing’s Enterprise. This open architecture platform is the basis of Smart Communications.

Leena Löytömäki, Account Director for Finnair at Miltton: “Enterprise ensures that data does not disappear and it provides clarity in the ongoing communication with the customers”. Taneli Hassinen adds: “For us it was vital to regain control over the whole editing process, but also to work with a reliable system.”
 
The new Annual Report
Smartium Oy, longstanding WoodWing partner and system integrator for both Miltton and Finnair, provided all necessary training, installation and IT support regarding the WoodWing and Adobe products. Adobe InCopy is an intuitive program, and the integration with Smart Communications is nearly invisible. Finnair staff members therefore needed only minor training to prepare for their new annual report.

Miltton designers used Adobe InDesign to create and maintain the layout. After that, Finnair staff only needed Adobe InCopy to write their content directly ‘in place’. And with Smart Communications controlling files and versions, all changes made by the writers and analysts were properly registered and appeared instantly in the right place.

In fact, since all writers, analysts and designers now work with Smart Communications, their location has become irrelevant. They can even work from home. Last minute updates by e-mail are a thing of the past and accuracy has been greatly improved. More importantly, proofing rounds have dropped to a minimum. That is good news, especially for the Financial Department, which does not focus primarily on the annual report.

Things to Come
The new Finnair annual report has been a great success, both for Miltton and Finnair Investor Relations. Publications like the Share Issues and several internal magazines are now also serious candidates to be produced using Smart Communications. Hassinen: “Working together with Miltton and using Smart Communications has been a happy marriage!”
 

Tweet