In my 1-1 sessions, I ask one question, and I am always surprised by the answer.

“When was the last time you read your competitor’s annual report?”

I provide 1-1 workshops in GenAI. The experience level of those that work with me are typically very senior in their organization. (I haven’t had a CEO, yet!) As a way of making the workshops directly applicable to their business, I ask them to come into the meeting with a few challenges in mind, could be something to solve, or something to explore.?

I always try to work in this important question.

“When was the last time you read your competitor’s annual report?”

I have read annual reports of companies I am working for, or with, since, well, it feels like forever. It’s an overlooked goldmine of information. No matter what level of employee you are within an organization, reading your company's annual report—and those of your competitors—can provide invaluable insights. And it can also catch the attention of your up-line management.

But it does take time and effort to not just read it, but to capital R read it. Or at least it did.

Read Own Annual Report

An annual report helps to connect what you do every day, to what the business does, and where it wants to go.?

Your company's annual report is more than just a financial statement. It's a roadmap of where your organization has been and where it's headed. Companies that take the time to write an annual report are often of a size and scale that the right arm may not know what the left foot is doing, Large organization’s are complicated, fractured, confusing at best. Reading the annual report can help you understand the bigger picture in ways that a quarterly All-hands will not.?

But it will also help you understand how your work fits into the work of others, and helps provide directionality, which many times can spark new ways of thinking about a problem you are trying to solve. At least it does for me. I like to think long-game when working on a client’s strategy or brief, and the annual report helps with that.?

But the gold is in the competitors reports.?It is really common in business strategy to ask “what does the customer want?” My follow up to that is “what are your competitors NOT providing?”?

Read Your Competitors Annual Reports

Analysing competitors' annual reports offers a wealth of strategic insights. You will have a much better understanding of where your company stands in relation to others in your industry. You may find market shifts, insight, opportunities that could be invaluable to the work you’re doing, a sort of breadcrumb to future work.?

But there is also a more personal benefit to reading the other guy’s annual reports - you become a treasure trove of competitive knowledge, and this will help you, your team mates, and your entire company, if you are into that sort of thing.

I remember sitting in an open discussion about the strategy for a new product feature that was being pitched. It was a great pitch, beautiful deck, full of customer insights to why this or that should happen, and that if “we get moving” in this direction, we should be done in 3 quarters and bring it to market by H2 of the following year.?

But because I had already read their competitors annual reports, I understood that while this was an interesting pitch, it was really only playing catch up to the head start two of the five competitors has begun over a year ago, and were just about to bring to market. I knew this because their R&D narrative already hinted at where they have been working.?

Annual Reports, GenAI, and Pattern Recognition

I used to set aside a lot of time in my week, to read the annual reports. Now, I task my Gen AI partners to do much of the heavy lifting for me, at the beginning. I ask for summarisations, for insights, for connections, the basic stuff any curious person might ask for from their GenAI assistant.?

But my most favourite part of using GenAI for this type of work is based on the layering of two or more annual reports from businesses in the same sector, looking for patterns, or more importantly, the holes in the fabric of these patterns.?

Annual Report design is a massive industry. I have participated in the develop of quite a few, from creative direction to story development. And while there is a bit of a template to annual reports, no two follow exactly the same structure, and it’s near impossible to compare one to another without spending a lot of time and energy.?

With the help of GenAI tools, and for this I use a mix of Claude, ChatGPT and Perplexity, I can look at a group of reports and find common themes, shared insights, and areas of omission. Spotting patterns becomes a much easier task. These patterns can appear that help shine o alight on how a competitor thinks, acts and plans. As well as pattterns inherent to a sector.?

Information is Power.

We live in a world where information is power, and annual reports are just sitting there, waiting to be tapped. By making report analysis a regular part of your professional routine—and leveraging the power of GenAI to streamline the process—you'll gain a competitive edge, regardless of your position. Remember, the most successful employees aren't just those who excel at their specific tasks, but those who understand and contribute to the bigger picture of their business.

So I’ll ask again - “When was the last time you read your competitor’s annual report?”

Let me do this for you.

If you just don’t have the time, or skills (yet) to put this into practice, let me help. As we move into 2025 planning, a team review of your competitors’ (and your own) annual report is a very valuable thing to add into your planning cycle, and I can help with that.?