€1¼bn Corporate Overview

Here’s a company presentation I came across recently that, according to the filename as accessed above, seems to have been completed on 23 February earlier this year. It’s evidently fully sanctioned and publicly available.

Unfortunately, I fear it would sit firmly in the cringe-inducing ‘before’ category of a makeover story of how not to do this kind of thing.

Why is this so, and how would the ‘after’ shine differently?

I’d be here all night if I went into the intricate details, like there’s way too many slides and too small a font, so rather, I’ll split this into simple categories with the help of three alliteral words; chant, charm, chart.

What’s the purpose of the presentation? Who’s the audience? When they’ve read it, what should they associate with the word Dürr? There’s no mantra, no over-riding constantly reinforced chant, no central message that acts as a glue to bind everything together as one.

I also think such message should charm the viewer. It should be hammering home goodness exclusively from their perspective. How can Dürr change your world for the better? Why is it great to work with them? It’s all just too ‘me, me me’ isn’t it?

Then there’s the actual display. All that text, all those bullets, all the too tiny photos. Financials tables, pie charts and even doughnuts. It’s oh so last century. Take the first slide proper. We’ve all seen client logos and topline indicators in overviews, but to squeeze it all in like this just chokes the life out of it.

There does seem some strong content that can emerge. Yet full size pictures, infographics and injecting some excitement into the tale need to come into play.

According to their central website the day I downloaded this, their 2010 sales were €1,261.4 million and 5,915 people worked for them. So there’s hope for us all. If a company with such deep resources can’t make a better fist of their corporate story, we should be able to take on anybody with confidence and fortitude. And prevail.

How closely does your company overview resemble theirs?