FEW people can resist those magazine quizzes that claim to reveal your inner personality.
So, try this one on your corporate personality: pick up your annual report and approach it as a stranger might.
Is it: (A) meeting all fiscal requirements, retrospective, financially opaque, short on expensive visual interest, long on verbal camouflage? or (B) only the first two of the above, but more besides - financially transparent, visually interesting, well written and giving a clear, concise account of business issues past and present? If you're instinctively happier with option A, and evidence from many British companies suggests you are not alone, then move to my final paragraph.
If you think there might be something in option B, read on.
At United Biscuits, we aspire to option B and the research we commission each year shows we are making progress, as our annual report becomes a recognised plank of our investor-relations programme.
Of course, the audiences of our annual report are diverse, but we have prioritised them and we try to define appropriate messages.
The easy bit is getting the report produced. Occasionally, we hear nightmare stories of reprints and erratum slips.