New Look for Audi Annual Report

Everything is different this year: the Audi Annual Report is being published in magazine format for the first time. Famous authors from the worlds of journalism and literature take a closer look at themes such as management, mobility and success. “With this new concept we wanted to make the medium of the annual report more attractive and open it up to new target groups. The Audi world in exciting interviews, informative reportage and emotional pictures – we are delighted that so many well-known authors agreed to contribute,” says Stephan Grühsem, Head of Communication at AUDI AG.

Paulo Coelho, international best-selling author of titles such as “The Alchemist”, “Eleven Minutes” and “The Zahir” exclusively describes his own interpretation of mobility: “When I am moving, certain things appear blurred, but I am following a path which leads me to a knowledge of the world and of myself, and, sometimes, I discover a new goal. Movement makes me uneasy, but that same unease forces me to make contact with others and to open my soul.” (Extract from “Always on the move”, short story can be read in full in the new Audi Annual Report).

Our new-format Annual Report also gives Donna Leon, author of the Commissario Brunetti novels, the opportunity to show that she can write more than just detective novels. Readers will also find out about the rather unconventional training methods adopted by Dirk Nowitzki, German basketball star with the Dallas Mavericks, such as trampolining, fencing, doing press-ups on his fingertips, and why he is fascinated by the Audi Q7.

adidas Chairman Herbert Hainer explains to Kai Stepp, former editor-in-chief of German business magazine Capital, on a business trip in his Audi A8 why he used to wear PUMA sports shoes. Nobel prizewinner Professor Hänsch talks to us about his aspirations for Germany’s industrial future – and what he thinks about when parking his car.

“A player must be able to push himself physically to his limits. It’s only then that you can start enjoying yourself,” says Felix Magath, football manager of FC Bayern Munich. In an interview he reveals his success strategies and training methods. He gets his inspiration for this from the theories of Felix von Cube, who examines the principles of management in his book “Lust an Leistung”.

Audi has also collected interesting stories on foreign markets, for example: How does a taxi driver negotiate the jungle of Tokyo’s road network? How can the China Code be broken? Well-known correspondents such as Frank Sieren (German business magazine Wirtschaftswoche in Beijing) conducted their research for these articles on location.

It goes without saying that sufficient attention is also paid to the “hard facts” such as the management report and the consolidated financial statements. The accounts of the Audi Group are explained in detail on eighty pages. Ditmar Schimanski, Head of Finance and Accounting: “The new and considerably extended accounting standards mean that many of the things that used to be explained in the image section of the Annual Report have now been moved to the financial section. This gave us the opportunity to give the section that is not subject to the formal accounting standards a completely new look.”

You can read the complete articles and find out what else happened at Audi in 2005 in the new Audi Annual Report which will be published on February 22 to coincide with the Annual Press Conference.