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Digitization is playing an increasingly important role in almost all areas of daily life. This development also opens up a wide range of new opportunities for financial reporting. The trend is clearly moving toward online reporting formats that allow content and key figures to be evaluated more quickly and in a more targeted manner. Against this background, companies have been increasingly foregoing the printing of their annual and sustainability reports for some years now. Instead they offer interactive report PDFs. The focus is increasingly on the stronger integration of new digital formats. These include online and "full HTML" versions of the company reports.
NORMA Group is also focusing on this promising trend. The basis for NORMA Group's Online Annual Report was created in 2019, after the relaunch of the Investor Relations website. The initial concept included a compilation and web-based preparation of essential content and chapters. For the first time, the digital Annual Report was built in an innovative, modular card format and has been continuously developed since then. On March 24, 2021, the new, expanded version of the Online Annual Report 2020 went "live".
The Investor Relations website now includes a new microsite with around 20 additional subpages. These display a wide range of relevant information and include many new user-friendly digital modules. The portfolio of new features includes the medium of the CEO video, interactive charts, and Excel downloads for key figure tables. Thus, the new digital format provides Investor Relations target groups with even faster access to essential information about NORMA Group. The extended Online Annual Report 2020 can be found as a separate menu item on the Investor Relations website.
The development process of the new Online Annual Report was actively supported by Britta Steinkamp, Webmaster/Marketing Coordinator, and the agency GFI Informationsdesign GmbH. Thanks to the collegial and cooperative collaboration as well as the great commitment of everyone involved, we have successfully continued the digitalization of NORMA Group's Investor Relations website. Looking ahead, we remain creative. In addition, we know: Optimization potential always exists. That's why we are constantly driving forward the digitization process of the Investor Relations website. Our aim is to continuously meet the information interests of our target groups.
The fact that we are on the right track with our focus on continuous digitization is underlined by a major success from last year: At the IR Magazine Awards 2020, the Investor Relations website was awarded 1st place in the category "Best IR Website Small Cap Europe".