It’s no secret that some of the first movers in the marketplace that are adopting XBRL on a practical, functional, and operational level were the large financial printers. This is even more true today, as the SEC XBRL mandate begins to wash through the economy for real. While many associations, interest groups, and advisory panels considered and debated the pros and cons related to XBRL adoption, the printers in contrast got right to work building the practice, pushing the discussions, and looking for software to help solve the problem.
A common theme is that the XBRL business model for them is requiring far more accounting expertise then they had first thought. This is a new twist and a new challenge to an industry traditionally focused on pure operational execution. This new variable, some accounting judgment on top of new and sometimes confusing rules, is causing some gears to grind in the traditionally smooth and intense operations business.
It is also no secret that Rivet has some key business partnership arrangements with various financial printers. Most companies in the financial printing industry are in a state of tremendous change. Change thrust upon them at the structural and the industry level as represented by mergers and consolidations within the changing economics, and self directed change within their own organizations as evidenced by new service offerings and gardening out less profitable ventures at a faster and faster pace.
With all this change and quick call to action in the printer space, there are lots of questions back and forth, and many perspectives bandied about. What does the end commercial customer want? How do they want it delivered? By when? At what price? What will the competition do? Now and in the long run? What are the real value adds to the equation and for how long? Is this sustainable?
Nearly every printer in this space has commented one way or the other how the XBRL business is different and how it is harder to get a fix and a trajectory of the unfolding of that XBRL business.
What I do hear from the same group of financial printers is a deep appreciation for the ease of use of Rivet tools and what that means to them from an efficiency and effectiveness basis. Right behind that is praise for Rivet’s deep accounting culture, expertise, and willingness to help them adjust to the new road ahead, regardless of business model employed today or the models they are considering for the future. One thing for certain is this is a “change or change” model for the near term.
