During the Financial Year 2007 we have further improved our profile as a socially responsible Company through the roll out of a number of initiatives.
As of 30 June 2007 we employed 1,187 professionals in 29 countries making us a leader in our field in terms of global coverage and the ability to serve customers both on an enterprise level as well as locally. We believe that this is a key strength of the Group. We are aware that the skills and experience of the people working for us constitutes the most important factor supporting this competitive advantage. To successfully exploit all the opportunities we have, cope with rapidly changing markets and manage threats that we are facing, it is crucial to continuously attract, retain and develop people with talent and vision. Therefore, maintaining good relations with our employees remains a high priority at all levels of the organisation.
During the previous year we fully implemented our Human Resources Policy (HR Policy) which describes in detail the interactions and relations between managers and our employees. All managers in their respective area of responsibility are required to manage according to the principles stipulated in the HR Policy and to outline it within their reports on a regular basis. The HR Policy encompasses the following topics:
Recognising the need for a further improvement of our ability to attract high calibre professionals and to develop our talent on a world-wide scale we have hired a Global VP of Human Resources. The VP of Human Resources is currently developing a programme allowing for globally coherent people management and development as well as performance management systems.
The Company's communications with its employees is a high priority. During the last Financial Year we have increased our internal communications at all levels. We regularly inform all Kofax plc employees about market developments, changes in our business as well as product and strategy updates. We hold formal and informal employee briefings as well as management and sales conferences to update and obtain feedback from employees on all aspects of the business as well as making use of Company e-mail, webcast and intranet sites to provide information, news and interviews. Most notably we launched "Kofax Connections", our corporate newsletter which gives a cohesive, up-to-date look at the latest news from throughout the organisation.
We have continued our Kofax Academy programme, which was founded in 2005 to develop the skills of our managers and to create an opportunity to exchange knowledge around the Group. To date a total of 1,500 individual training days have been conducted covering key aspects of Leadership and Business Ethics, Strategy and Operational Management. The Academy also includes sessions where managers' responsibilities are discussed with a specific focus on People Management, Education and General Development. The Academy was designed and implemented alongside Harvard Business School and Executive Education specialists.
Retention rates have remained at high levels compared to industry standards.
No company can thrive without a satisfied and growing customer base. During the last year we have continued to furnish our business partners and customers with a variety of new products and services which allows them to increase their competitiveness in their respective fields. We also conducted a number of formal and informal surveys where we specifically explored their views on our product road map, product and service quality and other related areas. We are committed to using the data to ensure that our customers and our business partners continue to be successful in their business markets.
Economic expansion has further accelerated on a global basis, particularly in growth markets like China, India and a number of other emerging countries from which the economies in the West continue to benefit substantially. In Asia we have benefited from these developments both directly and indirectly through the growing businesses of our partners. In this context we believe that successful businesses should give back part of their wealth to those that are in need. We consider investing in education as an effective way to support those in need allowing for autonomous development.
During the Financial Year 2007 we have therefore committed founding capital to a charity in Vietnam, which is working in the educational field. More specifically, it sponsors university studies allowing young people from low-income backgrounds to obtain higher level education. We believe that increasing the level of education is a decisive factor for any country or community to stimulate development.
We are planning to further strengthen our profile as a corporate citizen during the next Financial Year. We will primarily focus on initiatives that increase our attractiveness as a first-class employer on a global scale. To achieve this, combined with our main goal to increase our focus on software solutions, requires us to deploy a number of people management practices including programmes to remove geographic and organisational boundaries internally, improve our communication efforts and improve in global talent management.
2 October 2007
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