The second edition of the International Policy Conference focusing on the fundamental theme of intangible resources will be held in Frankfurt.
This special event will be organized by the Network WICI Europe, represented by NIBR (Italian Network for Business Reporting) in Italy, on Tuesday September 12th 2017, from 9.15 am to 5 pm, in Frankfurt at the ODDO BHF Bank headquarters. The theme is properly underlined by the title of the event (Intangibles: The European State of the Art) and expresses the need to share with an international audience the interpretation of the intangibles as an essential instrument for the management of organizations and as a crucial resource for the competitiveness and relaunch of European markets on the basis of a better surveying and a more efficient reporting.
Numerous speakers, enterprises, non-profit organizations, university professors and the most important international financial institutions – such as the companies ODDO BHF, EFFAS (European Financial Analysts), DVFA (German Financial Analysts), the International Integrated Reporting Council (IIRC), the German Accounting Standard Setter (DRSC), the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB), the French Accounting Standard Setter (ANC), the Observatoire de l’Immatériel/WICI France, the Ferrara University, the Munich LMU University in Bavaria, the Bordeaux University, the Passau University, the Frankfurt Stock-Exchange, the Moscow Higher School of Economics and NIBR. The Ferrara University Professor Stefano Zamboni’s speech will inaugurate the conference: he will represent the Italian University community, the Global WICI Network and the NIBR. Zamboni will inform participants of the state of art of the intangibles at international level. Particularly, he will deepen the theme of measurement and disclosure of intangibles and their integration in the decisions of operators in international financial markets.
Sara Cirone, Chief Executive Officer, and Andrea Ragazzini, Head of Management Control, of Stafer Spa, will participate with the speech The Management of Intangibles and Sustainability in an Italian SME: The Case of Stafer SpA, where the new experience of Integrated Reporting in Stafer will be introduced as well as the role of intangibles in the business companies’ value creation.
Today the debate about Integrated Reporting emphasizes a fundamental point in all the economic and social dissertation of the current historical period we are living: businessmen, institutions and citizens are changing their way to create value in the social world where they act and live. Everywhere around us the awareness of a fundamental theme of our time is growing: the intangible elements of our world truly create value for the activities and the life of mankind.
This awareness is growing at 360 degrees in all human social fields: this is the most remarkable observation. For example, science has already been exploring the quantistic physics fields and discovering the physical reactions of natural elements, subverting the classical scientific laws. In this perspective, they assume the world is not based on structural matter, but on energetic and vibrational connections. They can decode the shape of reality mankind belongs to. Therefore, the theme of intangibles in both nature and the human world represents a key-factor in evolution. This view follows the direction of a growing assertion, verbalized and decoded through these elements: they become increasingly essential in the development of human activities.
The contemporary company is one of the organizations mankind has created and is part of: it is constantly evolving according to both innovation and the current model of the social global system. The rhythm of companies’ activities increasingly supports new advanced ways of communication, organization and corporate behaviour with the capability to satisfy the new needs in people’s lives.
In this view, Integrated Reporting is one of the concrete steps achieving this aim. In fact, Integrated Reporting is a financial report edited by a company where classic economic information contained in the economic balance-sheet as well as all those elements capable of creating economic benefit in the long period are analysed, described and linked together. Through this analysis instrument, a company communicates more efficiently its identity, its role and its value to all its stakeholders and is committed in the enhancement of its future performance. It also helps a company to evaluate more clearly its strategy and to consider its value creation models to enhance governance systems. In a few words, this means a company’s strong determination to share with other economic and local stakeholders the information of the strengths and the assets involved in the creation of value and the consequences of the business activity on its own and local well-being.
Therefore, Integrated Reporting aims at a complete company financial report and at a development in the communication of the financial, environmental, social performance and governance through a single annual statement. Integrated Reporting is a process supporting these connections as well as economic operators in taking sustainable decisions and investors and stakeholders in their evaluation of the concrete organizational performance.
These are the reasons why Integrated Reporting is so important and can also be a possible sustainable strategy under the business, social and natural environment viewpoint. Furthermore, Integrated Reporting participates in the structure of a company’s internal processes thus representing a company’s creation of social and corporate value. In addition, Integrated Reporting is an innovative business report instrument addressed to explain strategical directions and to indicate the connections between financial and non-financial management factors. It achieves a clear communication addressed to corporate stakeholders and increases their commitment. Finally, it contributes to reduce the reputational risk, reinforcing the trust of all the stakeholders and completing the classic balance-sheet with non-financial information.
In short, Integrated Reporting and its creation process aims at representing concretely the people’s perception of the company as part of a more extended social and economic environment. A company receives essential elements from its surrounding environment and returns the results of its elaboration. In this exchange, all the meanings that support human life are involved and – in line with our times – a company itself has the necessity to affirm clearly all the value created by its Human Resources and all natural resources, too, which allow a company’s everyday existence.