Ecoma and Reporting Hub: How annual reports automatically become a content platform

The RYZE Reporting Hub is a powerful tool for improving corporate reporting: It makes it easy to create complex business reports and can automatically generate business and sustainability reports from key figures according to common standards - both as a full HTML report and as an interactive PDF. Users can then use filters to search specifically for the information they need or create compact short reports to get a quick overview.

One advantage of the Reporting Hub is the ability to work together with other digital tools via interfaces. These include popular disclosure management software solutions such as Workiva and Smartnotes. Together with our own content management system (CMS) Ecoma, on which the Reporting Hub is based, this results in unique synergies. Financial reports can be combined directly with storytelling content for a modern, digital annual report without major effort - always up-to-date and from a single source, making it ideal for skilfully showcasing your own company with the latest figures and stories in the annual report.

Ecoma: simple workflows,
practical automations

We have been developing our enterprise CMS Ecoma since 2001. Large national and international corporations such as BearingPoint, Diehl and Oerlikon have been using it for years and trust its reliability, extensive expansion options and intuitive operating concept. Among other things, the CMS can be used to manage documents, organise customers, automatically create newsletters and conduct video conferences and application processes.

Ecoma is designed to enable many employees to work together on projects in a decentralised manner without the need for extensive coordination. Simple content creation makes it easy even for inexperienced users to write articles and publish them with elements such as graphics and videos.

The CMS is also characterised by its automation functions, which mean that complex processes take less time. This reduces the complexity of annual reports in particular, as stories that are written for the image section of the report can also appear automatically on a company's website. This turns the one-off publication as a report into a long-term, high-profile presentation on the company's own website. Conversely, content designed for a company website can also appear automatically in the report, perfectly customised to the layout and presentation method either as a PDF or full HTML report.

Synergies between the annual report
and external communication

The importance of this can be seen, among other things, in the recruitment of new employees: A study by the Bertelsmann Foundation, for example, found that 49 per cent of employees consider sustainability to be the most important issue for companies. 41 per cent of participants said that the company's carbon footprint and climate protection are important to them. Companies that present their ESG ambitions in a non-financial report should therefore also present them on their own website.

At this point, Ecoma offers the opportunity to fulfil the expectations of applicants in a targeted manner. Not only do the company's current sustainability endeavours appear on the website, they can also be linked directly to job advertisements on subpages. Interested parties can therefore find out directly about the company's sustainability strategy and successes with just a few clicks. The content can be structured to suit the target group: with more interactive elements on the website compared to a short section in the sustainability report, for example, or by mirroring the content of the report on a one-to-one basis.