Chinese companies win praise for mindset change

As China has become the second largest economy in the world, companies here, especially corporate ones, are beginning to see the big picture and behave in a manner more in line with the newly-earned global economic status of the country.

Unlike many other global corporations, Chinese companies didn’t consider financial reports and corporate social responsibility (CSR) statements seriously until in recent years.

Now, the companies realize the value of communicating with their corporate partners, government and social organizations, media, professional institutes, universities, and their own employees.

"The CSR report is a good messenger, conveying the idea to people who have a stake in it, as well as our own employees," said Xu Xiaoling, CSR report editor with China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC), one of the largest corporations in China.

"CNPC is dedicated to be a model citizen in the enterprise community, balancing profit, environment protection and social responsibility," Xu said.

According to Xu, producing CSR reports also helped employees improve. She believes a CSR report has a significant influence on employees in the ways of centralizing ideas and increasing awareness.

CNPC produced its first CSR report in 2006. At that time, Xu had to explain what is social responsibility to the employees and spend a long time sharing his views with them.

After 8 years producing reports, internal corporate communication has become much easier, Xu expressed.

"Now our staff knows more than we expect, instead of talking about understandings, they directly tell me what they did. We are so gratified about it."

This year, CNPC is a silver winner of the ARC awards, a world top prize for exquisitely edited and printed enterprise financial reports and corporate social responsibility (CSR) reports.

The awards is sponsored by MerCommInc, a US-based independent award organization, founded in 1987 with the mission of advancing the standards of excellence in the fields of corporate communications.

At the awards ceremony in Beijing last week, Reni L. Witt, founder and president of MerCommInc, presented the awards to seven Chinese companies and shared with China Daily her views about Chinese enterprises’ reports.

"The quality of Chinese annual reports is very much improving, and getting far more interesting,’’ she said. "They are more factual than western companies. Now they are getting much better at telling their company’s stories."

According to Witt, mainland China is now the fourth largest force competing in the ARC awards, after Hong Kong, United States and Germany.

The first annual reports from mainland China started coming in 2008. The earliest companies included Capinfo Company Ltd., China Shenhua Energy Company Ltd., and SinoMedia Holding Ltd.

In 2014, 146 annual reports were submitted from China, capturing 30 prizes, including five Gold Awards plus the Best of People’s Republic of China for SinoMedia Holding Ltd.

Thirty companies from the Chinese mainland won ARC awards this year, 18 of which, including CNPC, had reports produced by Toppan Vite Ltd, a Hong Kong-based professional financial printing company, and a leading player in the niche market in China.

"Outsourcing the report to professional printers can help us make breakthroughs in forms." said Xu. "A good report entails a large amount of communications and creative minds and labours in designing and editing. Our first ARC award means all efforts paid off."

Big state-owned enterprise is the main source of Toppan’s customer base. These SOEs are not short of funds, and are motivated to enter the global market. China is becoming a capital exporter. Its SOEs soon become ambitious investors and purchasers in the world where they had remained less known for long. The SOEs have a strong need, if not enforced, to make their structure, business and operation more transparent to the global market.

"This is a profitable business," said Ringo Mo, general manager of sales and marketing division of Toppan.

"We see in China (mainland) and even in Hong Kong, the CSR report will be increasing. All the corporations are more concerned about how to project the image to be a responsible company."

Mo thinks companies are starting to think that their spending on a CSR may get some positive return besides branding: a better client and customer loyalty, a better change to manage crisis when it happen, a better staff retention and so on.

More competitors are emerging from public relations companies and advertising agencies. But the entry barriers are becoming higher and higher, in terms of technology and services, Mo noted.

"More reports will be on mobile phone, and tablet computers. And the clients are more better educated than before, and they know how to pick a good solution provider, not only good design, but your background, experience, and especially, how you can serve them globally," Mo added.

Toppan’s revenues have risen 15 percent in each of the past four years. The company has about 200 corporate clients with Chinese background, 70 percent out of Toppan’s Hong Kong office, the rest from Beijing and Shanghai office.

Duxiaoying1@chinadaily.com.cn