Interdepartmental IR: accounting and finance most important

Even the smallest one-body IR department gets help from elsewhere in the company, reveals research by EY and IR Magazine, with 97 percent of IROs reporting interdepartmental cooperation.

The study, titled ‘Taking it to heart: exploring how investor relations is organized in companies pre and post IPO‘, asked almost 900 IR professionals about their investor relations practice, including which departments have the most to offer the IR team.

IR functions that have regular contact with other departments were asked to rate how important they thought interdepartmental cooperation is to the IR practice. Accounting and finance scored highest, with an average 9.3 out of 10. In fact, almost three-quarters (74 percent) give the accounting and finance department a perfect 10 – just 2 percent give it a score of 5 or less.  

Slightly behind in second place is planning, budgeting and forecasting, with an average score of 9.1 followed by strategy at 8.6. Corporate communications, often linked to IR, came in seventh place with an average score of 8.

‘Except in the case of HR, which had an average score of 6.3, cooperation with all departments was rated as very important to good IR practice,’ write the study authors.

Regionally, HR is seen as more important in Asia Pacific, while cooperation with corporate communications less so. At the same time, this department is seen as more important in the Americas, as is legal and tax.