28 Mar 03: Corporations Adopt XML-Based Platform for Investor Relations

More than 1,000 public companies have begun displaying their financial statements in an interactive format, based on a combined platform from enumerate, a developer of numeric presentation software, and CCBN, a provider of Internet-based shareholder communications services. Enumerate’s so-called Interactive Financial History functionality is now a core component of CCBN’s next generation investor relations Web site platform.

The new technology allows investors to quickly and easily analyze the most important financial reports, including balance sheets, income statements, statements of cash flow, and key performance ratios. It enables a more transparent portrayal of a company’s financial condition by allowing investors to perform analysis from a standard Web browser.

“Transparency for public companies is best achieved by making information more accessible and understandable.  With this new capability a part of our platform, we’re raising the standard for investor communications,” Rob Adler, president of CCBN, said. “This benefits public companies by making their performance more transparent and accessible. Retail and institutional investors alike benefit from the analytic capabilities.”

“Using advances in technology to make it easier for investors of all types to better understand corporate performance is the type of positive, proactive step that progressive companies can take”, said Arthur Levitt, former chairman of the S.E.C. and a member of CCBN’s advisory board. “With Regulation Fair Disclosure, we established a trend in open disclosure that this offering takes to a higher level.”

Among the major organizations and public companies that use enumerate’s software to present financial data include Forbes.com, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Baker Hughes, and Deloitte & Touche.

Enumerate, based in Virginia, develops and markets software for presenting numerical data in an interactive format.  Enumerate's core product, Numerator! Publish, enables business users to publish reports from a variety of different data sources for both internal corporate use and external communication.  CCBN was co-founded in 1997 by Jeffrey P. Parker, creator of Thomson Financial’s First Call service, and Robert Adler, to provide a platform enabling direct communications between public companies and the investment community over the Internet.

The two companies have incorporated enumerate’s XML-based data management system into CCBN’s investor relations offering. Enumerate’s platform utilizes its so-called RDL component, which makes it possible to automate routine functions involved in data analysis - such as typing data into a spreadsheet - and simplify complicated data analysis tasks - such as applying analytical routines.

RDL captures and digitizes the information that makes each data set unique - including the data's units and magnitude, the source, and how the data should be arrayed. It then saves this intelligence in encoded form, in a computer file, together with the data itself. The RDL file can be handled like any other computer file. It can be opened and edited. It can be stored on a disk, or put on a company network. It can be sent via e-mail to somebody - or posted online.

Because the data and the intelligence about that data are stored together in an RDL file, computer software can be developed to decode the information and automate data tasks. The data can be reused and consumed in a variety of different ways.