For the listed companies,the foremost thing is to give a very high degree of importance to the value of attracting and retaining investors as shareholders and expanding their base. Such companies understand that the shareholders are the fundamental building blocks of their ownerships, and it is these shareholders who have placed a higher stock value on the Company’s stock. Such companies also reckon that these shareholders tend to have a greater degree of confidence in the strategies pursued by the management. It is because of these reasons that such companies invest a great deal of time and resources to convert their common investors into ‘understanding’ and ‘supportive’ shareholders.

The process of communicating with the investors so as to enable them to view a business favorably and worthy of their investment, is called Investor Relationss (IR). The role of IR involves creating higher investors awareness and better understanding of a Company through regular and sustained processes that end up as the measure of a Company’s credibility and establishes the levels of confidence the investors and analysts have in the Company as an information resource. Fundamentally, the purpose of Investor Relationss is to function as a service to the shareholders and the potential investors; providing timely and reliable material information and performing basic shareholder services. Overall, the broad objective of IR is to enable the investors to put a high value on the companies’ securities and help them realize the full value potential of a company.

The practice of IR is moving from a lore to a full-fledged discipline just as investing, and now IR has become an important corporate function for many leading corporations in the World. Today, IR occupies an essential facet of any publicly traded company, inevitably affecting its stock price, investments, and liquidity etc. For any company, the goal of maximizing the potential of shareholder services through effective IR practices involves deep understanding of this complex undertaking so as to advocate persuasively on a company's behalf to achieve greater recognition and value. There has been no definite primer on the practice of IR, and there have been no direct pathways through academia or through the securities markets that offer well laid down policies to follow with regards to this most important strategic management function of the listed corporates. Its in this context that the South Asian Federation of Exchanges (SAFE) has decided to offer one day training program on this important subject, which is the first of its kind in Pakistan. The purpose of this program is to develop an understanding of this most important corporate responsibility subject amongst the senior management cadre of the listed companies who are entrusted with the job of communicating with different stakeholders of their respective companies.