Moving towards best practice structure and content.

Following an 18-month period of transformation during which Micro Focus acquired the software business of Hewlett Packard Enterprises, the company wanted to enhance their corporate reporting to demonstrate how the business has evolved. This included changing their year end.

Challenge

The overall objective for the annual report was to move towards a best practice structure and content. This was achieved by breaking out the key sections into individual, but linked, narratives. We worked with Micro Focus to create a structure that supported their key messages in the most effective way and gave ownership to the relevant managers within the business.

Action

Working with the Micro Focus team, we introduced case studies to explain the impact of their technologies and the results delivered for customers and developed a timeline to explain the impact of the 18-month reporting period. In addition, we helped the Micro Focus team to design and articulate a strategy and business model to show how the company creates value, a new market analysis to illustrate the complex markets in which they operate and a product portfolio review that broke down revenue streams by product group.

Impact

Overall the annual report was designed in an impactful and user friendly manner to allow the exciting, albeit complex, Micro Focus story to be clearly communicated to their key stakeholder groups. As a result of the acquisition, the design of the annual report signalled the next stage of the company’s development and was a break from the reporting style of previous years.