Corporate Annual Report Communicate Stockholders Interested Parties

¶ … corporate annual report communicate stockholders interested parties financial statements. The annual report a summary corporation's operations previous 12-month time period states corporation's plans future.

The Wal-Mart Stores 2012 Annual Report

Wal-Mart's annual report, like the annual reports of most economic agents, can be found on their website, under the section designed for investors. This placement of the annual report is indicative of its financial importance and its role as a source of information for current and potential investors. Additionally, the quick and easy accessibility to the annual report of the largest American retailer reveals their commitment to transparent communications with any category of interested stakeholders, such as customers, employees, business partners, the public, governmental and non-governmental institutions and so on.

Still, what should also be remembered is that the annual report of Wal-Mart, as well as the annual report of other economic agents, is a document created solely by the respective institution. Its primary scope is that sharing information with the interested stakeholders, but through it, the company also strives to improve its image and reputation. In other words, while the annual report is based on some numeric figures, it is also created in a manner that promotes the organization. In such a setting then, it is important for the researcher to maintain an objective, distanced and unbiased approach when conducting assessments of organizational annual reports.

The Wal-Mart 2012 Annual Report celebrates the fiftieth anniversary of the store, since the first shop was opened in Arkansas, by Sam Walton. The vision of the founder was that of creating a one stop store, where people could find wide product choices at affordable prices, and where the employees would find pleasant and rewarding working environments. The 2012 annual report of the company is a testimonial of how the company has followed the same vision and has modernized it to support the well-being of its current customers and partners.

At a more specific level, the current annual report of Wal-Mart is organized into eight sections, as follows:

CEO Letter, in which Mike Duke, President and Chief Executive of Wal-Mart addresses the public.

Operating segments, where the company presents information on the operations and results of its three segments, namely Wal-Mart U.S., Wal-Mart International and Sam's Club.

Wal-Mart Stores Inc., at the level of which the company presents its commitments to responsibility, as well as its efforts in the direction of global commerce and the Wal-Mart associates.

Chairman's message, through which Rob Walton addresses the public.

Board of Directors, which presents the structure and composition of the board at Wal-Mart.

50-Year history, a celebrative section revealing the evolution and successes of Wal-Mart along its five decades existence.

Financials, which is a more complex section than in other years, since it presents the financials of the company not only in recent times, but throughout its entire evolution.

Video, social and apps. This final section is the most innovative one. The previous seven sections are recurrent in all annual reports and they are the common elements one would find in a company communicate. Still, this final section integrates technology at a superior level and reveals the company's commitment to evolution.

Throughout the past year, Wal-Mart has continued its growing path of revenues and profitability and these are pegged to the opening of more stores across the globe, but also through sustained investments in social corporate responsibility. Additionally, the success of Wal-Mart in the face of the economic crisis that diminishes the powers of other companies is represented by its successful strategy of offering the lowest possible price. This strategy reveals best results in times of economic crisis.

At the level of assets, similar to the sales and profits, their value in 2012 relative to 2011 has also increased from $180,782 million to $193,406 million. Increases have been observed at the levels of all categories of Wal-Mart assets, namely current assets (cash and equivalents, receivables, inventories, prepaid expenses and other and current assets of discounted operations), property and equipment (plus the adjacent depreciation), goodwill or other assets and deferred charges. In terms of the actual increase in amounts, the largest increase in the company's assets has been revealed at the level of the property and equipment asset category.