Award-winning MD&A sets BCE apart

Challenge
Long before transparency became a corporate buzzword, Canada’s largest communications company, BCE Inc., had already recognized the value of making information clearer and more meaningful.

In 2002, when BCE introduced a new strategy focused on simplicity, efficiency and discipline, they chose SimpleLogic to carry that into their annual report. Our goal for this widely held public company was to create clear and open disclosure that the average retail investor could understand.

Solution
We raised the bar by developing a structure for their MD&A based on new guidelines from the Canadian Institute of Chartered Accountants (CICA). We also rewrote it and simplified the notes to their financial statements to make them easy to understand, and recommended ways to use design to further enhance that clarity.

Result
BCE’s plain language MD&A ranked #1 out of 1,000 firms worldwide as “a showpiece of clarity, intelligibility and credibility” by enterprise.com (a Belgium-based financial and corporate communications consulting firm).

We’ve continued to work with BCE on their annual reports and other materials, including proxy circulars, proxy forms and annual information forms. We’ve also worked on the annual information form and internal control documents for Bell Canada.

By extending plain language to all of their disclosure documents, we’ve helped BCE score high marks for their willingness to embrace plain language requirements and regulatory change – setting a new standard for corporate disclosure in Canada.