Sign of the times - Allianz one of the first companies to move their annual report to an iPad app

Posted by Jane Toohey on 5 May 2011 | 0 Comments

Tags: annual reports, mobile applications

The Allianz Group Annual Report is now available also as an interactive iPad application. Allianz is not only offering its Annual Report as a simple download as well as an online version (HTML), but it is one of the first companies to offer an interactive document tailored for use with the iPad. Functionalities include specifically accessing expanded information and quickly navigating through the Annual Report simply with the touch of a finger. This small application program for the iPad to view an annual report is available in the Apple App Store for anyone to download free of charge.

Allianz have almost 500,000 shareholders so the app is targeted directly at them, but this application is also especially interesting for financial analysts and journalists. These professional users of financial information now no longer have to carry around a 300-page annual report. They have all the information stored conveniently on their tablet computer.

The company information is still on their website www.allianz.com, it is important to not cut anyone off from the information but the app is simply another method of making their information available and it offers certain advantages. It is intuitive, as the reader can tap on individual paragraphs or numbers in the text and the appropriate detailed table or additional information will be displayed. In addition, users can add their own highlights and store changes so that the next time the file is accessed, the desired passages are immediately displayed.

The creative design of annual reports is now more important than ever to ensure that the casual reader can grasp the key messages intended, no matter what medium they choose to read it on. Importantly the information must be easy to read and comprehend in this new mobile environment, designing material that works for a mobile application is not the same as designing and writing for a website.