The balance? I put it into the shopping bag.

The balance sheet data of a company are usually the object of glossy publications, that are very beautiful but mostly incomprehensible, and instead are made to impress the investors. And yet, these data are important and concern workers and clients, and tell of the health condition of a society or can influence the future politics. In short, they merit to be understood by all the customers, not only those “familiar with the field”.

A clear subject for Migros, the biggest Swiss supermarket, has decided that on its paper shopping bags this month, instead of putting a nice picture or the publicity of the latest offerings, shows the data more important from the 2009 balance.

Of course, in a modern, graphical format, as it happens often with their fashion shopping bags, with the charts transformed into parallelepipeds inspired by Mondrian. But absolutely proportioned: the big orange square that covers the paper shopping bags represents the total business volume, and the internal squares and rectangles are proportioned tothe orange square. And they represent some of the more significant data for the Migros customers, as for example the 24.95 billions of francs (about 18 billion euros), ofturnover, the increase of 18 percent of the Le Shop shops, or the 15 billions of francs (about 10 billion euros) assigned to investments, or the 1.3 billions of francs (about 900 billion euro) used in the ecological labels.

Information evidently directedat the customer, telling where the proceeds of the most important cooperative of the country finish: it was born as anonymous society in 1925 thanks to illuminated entrepreneur, Gottlieb Duttweiler, who decided to create a company that permitted the Swiss customers to save and the producers of the confederation to earn more free from monopolies and their price’s distortions. For this among the data that makes good exhibit on the shopping bag, there are also the 750 millions of Swiss francs (about 520 millions of euros) that come from the regions with regional products or the 5.1 billions destined at the industrial companies, that produce alternative products, but of similar quality to those of the more famous brands.

Among the other data to signal, the 115 millions of francs (about 80 millions of euros) destined by Migros to the Swiss culture though the “cultural percent”, a type of tenth on the proceeds that the society destines to the cultural activities in the country. And the 0 francs bonus  destined to its managers, desspite the economic year that has been resolutely positive with respect to the general situation of the country.

Without forgetting, on the back, also a set of curious data, from the length of the receipt rolls used (100 thousand kilometres, in reality) to the 10 million kilometres by train coveredby their goods, from the 20 million golf balls used in the Migros trophy to the 49 millions of domino’s cards distributed as gadget at the customers.

Of course, the numbers decorate the shopping bag are only a part of the economical documentation of the society. As the shopping bag itself explains, the rest can be found on www.migros.ch/m09.