DIMO ‘Overall Winner’ for 6th consecutive year at CMA Excellence in Integrated Reporting Awards 2020

DIMO Group CEO Gahanath Pandithage receiving the Overall Winner award

DIMO, one of Sri Lanka›s leading conglomerates, continued its remarkable winning run in Integrated Reporting as it took home the ‘Overall Winner’ award for the sixth consecutive year, at the recently-concluded 2020 edition of the prestigious ‘CMA Excellence in Integrated Reporting Awards’ organised by the Institute of Certified Management Accountants. 

In addition to this main award of the evening, DIMO also won the ‘Special Award for Best Concise Integrated Report’, ‘Award for the Ten Best Integrated Reports’ and ‘Special Award for Integrated Thinking’.

DIMO Group CEO Gahanath Pandithage and Senior Accountant Ishara Danansooriya attended the event which was held recently.

DIMO’s continuous efforts to maintain the highest level of adherence to the Integrated Reporting Framework issued by the International Integrated Reporting Council and how the company has thereby articulated integrated thinking in its recent Annual Report have paved the way for winning these accolades. 

DIMO is widely known as one of the few companies that redefined integrated reporting in Sri Lanka by adopting the International Integrated Reporting Framework (International <IR> Framework) when it was first introduced. From the very beginning, DIMO’s integrated reporting practices were greatly appreciated by different educational institutes allowing the company to indirectly help to improve the Sri Lankan IR practices.

DIMO Chairman and Managing Director Ranjith Pandithage stated: “Winning the most prestigious award of the night once is tough enough given the high standards we have to achieve and the intense competition out there. Therefore, winning it six consecutive times is an incredible achievement that speaks volumes of DIMO’s commitment to Integrated Reporting and our team’s outstanding efforts in adhering to the high standards. 

“We are always searching for new ways to review and adopt best practices in both local and international reporting and disclosure guidelines in both financial and non-financial aspects so that information of the highest quality is given to all stakeholders.” He added that each content element of the Annual Report demonstrates how DIMO is geared to deliver the strategy.

Integrated thinking refers to the manner in which organisations consider different elements that affect value creation and their interdependencies and interconnections, when managing the organisation. In an Integrated Report, this thinking needs to be articulated by the management in their management discussions and by demonstration of alignment of strategy throughout the report. 

In the DIMO Integrated Report, commencing from the Chairman›s Review itself, it demonstrates its methodical approach to integrated thinking. This reflects when Chairman elaborates on how he promotes a culture where employees consider all aspects that affect value creation and the importance of goal congruence in the recent annual report of DIMO. The Group CEO’s review in the annual report portrays how DIMO’s brand repositioning would increase the company’s future resilience. In addition, the company, with its new brand repositioning, now demonstrates relatively higher strategic focus and integrated thinking. Such changes in corporate climate have also led to improved reports.

The CMA places great importance in the conciseness of the Annual Report and DIMO›s Annual Report certainly stands out in this regard. Conciseness is normally measured by total number of pages and number of pages utilised by the non-financial section of the report. 

Achieving conciseness while maintaining the completeness of information is challenging and by winning this award for several consecutive years, DIMO has demonstrated that it has achieved the ideal balance between conciseness and completeness.