Case studies

Financial exchanges are highly technical and complicated organisations. With an important board meeting approaching, the management team needed to convey all the background information to board members, in a way that was comprehensive but without ‘information overload’.

A South African stockbroker was putting together a tender document for institutional contributions. The Request for Proposal was complex and much of the information it asked for had not been documented.

FirstRand realised that its annual report was too long, too repetitious and too complex to be usable. However, they did not know how to improve it when the messages it had to convey were complex, technical and often very detailed.

One of the ‘big four’ accounting firms was unsure of how to persuade its customers to subscribe to its new online service when the IT terminology was so complex and intimidating. Simplified was asked to help.

The long-term insurance industry has so much jargon and complexity that few can understand its documents. Faced with recent plain-language regulation, unwanted litigation, and decreasing levels of trust, one company decided to tackle this head-on – and commit to producing its documents in plain language.

A large financial services company needed to communicate its fund management philosophy in a clear manner so that it would be understood, but also in a sophisticated and interesting way so that it would be appealing to the high-level investors it was targeting.

The credit card division of one of South Africa’s largest retail banks wanted to comply with The Code of Banking Practice - which requires banks to communicate with customers in plain language.

One of South Africa’s largest and most innovative insurance companies realised that inaccessible communications would get in the way of its strategic aim of offering a fair and consistent service to customers, intermediaries and staff.

The GCIS (Government Communication and Information System) was experiencing difficulties in making high-level government strategy accessible to the average South African. They realised that they would need a sustainable solution if they were to produce the Imbizo and other documents in a clear and simple way.