Public filings have historically been the dominion of accounting. Companies with more than $10 million in assets and a class of equity securities that is held by more than 500 owners must file annual and other periodic reports, regardless of whether the securities are publicly or privately traded. They’re a necessary evil, and consequently, businesses have departments of accountants and lawyers who slave away at filing these reports at the appropriate intervals, often just because they must.
But we believe the 10-K is so much more than just a requirement.
Investor and commodities guru Jim Rogers once wrote “If you get interested in a company and you read the annual report….you will have done more than 98% of the people on Wall Street. And if you read the footnotes in the annual report you will have done more than 100% of the people on Wall Street. I realized right away that if I just literally read a company's annual report and the notes -- or better yet, two or three years of reports -- that I would know much more than others.”
So sure, the 10-K is a great tool for investors. But why doesn’t the same logic follow in business strategy? Why don’t companies read the 10-Ks of their competitors, vendors, major customers and partners? Why shouldn’t a procurement professional look at public data before entering into a long-term project with a software vendor?
Have you seen a 10-K? It’s certainly not “Eat, Pray, Love.” It’s more like a book of numbers written by accountants to regulatory standards. Are you asleep yet?
This is the problem that idaciti solves. We’re making public financial data accessible, so you can know more about your competition and partners than even the employees who work there.
You’ll know more about actual revenue. True expense. You’ll see lawsuits, debts, liabilities, and how much a company spends to close a sale. You’ll see what that fancy new office cost them. If they’re moving overseas to avoid taxes. If they’re ready to invest in new technologies. What their highest-performing products are. How much they spend on their management team. And you’ll sniff out warning signs before it’s too late.
What’s even better is that since all filings are normalized, it’s easy to compare one company against the other. And against yours.
10-Ks aren’t just the cost of doing business in a global public marketplace. They’re the competitive intelligence you need, even before you spend a dime on Bloomberg Terminals, market research or consultants. idaciti, with its intuitive, visualization dashboard, makes every 10-K as easy to read as a line graph. Isn’t it time to do more due diligence than 100% of Wall Street? And now you can do it in half the time.
What are you waiting for? It's time to become the oracle your business needs. Discover the power of the 10-K today.
