There are some aspects of our work that are the equivalent of a medical disaster if we get verification wrong.
Lisa Zimmet
Head of Investor Relations
AU
UK
US
AU
UK
US
Coles has used Atticus since its first year as a standalone ASX-listed company. It now covers every corporate report released to the market.
There are some aspects of our work that are the equivalent of a medical disaster if we get verification wrong.
Lisa Zimmet
Head of Investor Relations
Coles is one of Australia’s largest ASX-listed retailers, employing more than 115,000 team members across a network of more than 860 supermarkets and 980 liquor stores. As an ASX-listed company, any information released to the market must be accurate and not misleading. The consequences of getting it wrong range from regulatory action to reputational damage with investors and analysts.
Lisa Zimmet, Head of Investor Relations, has led Coles’ verification process since the company listed in 2018.
Lisa explains, “If we’re disclosing information that could affect the share price and that information is incorrect, there are obviously repercussions. And there’s the reputational damage as well if the numbers are wrong.”
The board is closely involved. As directors of a public company, they have their own obligations around the accuracy of what is disclosed.
“The board want to have confidence that what they’re signing off is accurate. My name is on the ASX announcement so from a reputational point of view with both internal and external stakeholders, accuracy of the information is very important.”
The bigger risk, in practice, is not deliberate misstatement. It’s the reputational damage caused by an honest mistake.
“It almost goes back to the lack of confidence the market would have in you if you don’t get your numbers right. The credibility of the investor relations function, and the company more broadly, is definitely at stake.”
The verification workflow at Coles starts with raw data. The messaging is then drafted with the CEO and CFO, and when the document is about 80% complete, it goes into Atticus.
At this point verification is completed by up to 30 people for an Annual Report, and even more for the Sustainability Report. The board then receives the verified document alongside a formal verification paper, including a progress report which can be extracted from Atticus.
“The board are definitely questioning statements themselves – it’s not just a box-ticking exercise. And with Atticus, we can respond very quickly, because we have the whole audit trail; we can go back and show them the support for that.”
Coles rely on auto-annotate to assign complex statements to different people quickly and precisely.
“Given the volume of material we put into Atticus, there might be four sentences that need to go to four separate people. So having that auto-annotate is a very helpful tool.”
Coles relies on version control to keep track of what has changed and what still needs to be verified.
“We get a lot out of version control, especially when uploading new documents, and even new supporting documents; it’s a very smart system, being able to pick everything up and see, yes, that is what I changed.”
Coles use Evidence Finder to surface the right supporting document quickly from a large library.
“Rather than sifting through all of our supporting documents, Evidence Finder provides suggestions, saving time and making it easier to find the right support. As there are so many supporting documents, having Evidence Finder has been invaluable.”
Verification at Coles is not only about managing risk. It also gives the business the confidence to make stronger claims.
Lisa says, “We are risk-averse, but that doesn’t mean that we don’t want to scream from the rooftops when we do have something great to say, as long as we can stack it up.”
Every business wants to present itself in the strongest possible terms. For Coles that’s possible, but only if the statements can be verified.
“When you’re competing in a market, you want to be world-leading, record-breaking. But that is very hard to verify. I’ll say to people, if you want to say it, help us verify it – find the peers, find how we’re doing better in XYZ. We want to deliver that message, but we need you to give us the data and show us, rather than just throwing these words out.”
Coles has been a listed company for more than seven years. Atticus has been part of the verification process for most of that time, which means the organisation has built a culture around it.
“It’s been good for us that we’ve had Atticus almost from the start. I feel like we have had a culture, from the beginning, that verification is very important to the company.”
That culture extends to how new staff are brought in. Because the platform is straightforward to use, getting someone up to speed does not require significant time or formal training.
“Even when we have had turnover of staff, it’s very easy to take someone through it; they pick it up very easily. You don’t need to run detailed training sessions every year.”
Lisa trusts Atticus to give them total confidence in what they release to market.
“Atticus is a trusted company. It’s a system that works.”
