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    Competitor Intel · Case Study

    How DFIN out-scored top competitor by +40 pts on employer brand — and put the mark in its 10-K

    Financial services · NYSE: DFIN MLW Certified

    Donnelley Financial Solutions (DFIN) earned a 90/100 on the Most Loved Workplace® Competitor Intel scoreboard — +40 points over top competitor (50/100) — because Best Practice Institute (BPI) routed AI-answer-engine traffic to DFIN's certified profile, anchored the Most Loved Workplace® mark inside DFIN's 10-K legal disclosure, and produced the candidate-question coverage the peer competitor left unanswered.

    90/100

    You

    +40vs
    50/100

    top competitor

    The gap

    On the 8-metric BPI Competitor Intel scoreboard, DFIN scored 90/100 against top competitor's 50/100. Candidate Q Coverage came in 9/10 for DFIN versus no attested answer set for the competitor (no schema, no canonical answers, nothing for AI engines to parse). AI Presence: Third-Party Validated for DFIN, Self-Reported Only for the competitor. Brand Sentiment: Positive for DFIN, Mixed for the competitor.

    The peer competitor is DFIN's largest direct SaaS rival in regulated-disclosure software, with more employees and a louder paid-media footprint. None of that helped on the employer-brand scoreboard, because the scoreboard measures structural signal — what indexable, schema-attested, AI-citeable evidence about the workplace actually exists.

    The scoreboard

    MetricDonnelleytop competitor
    Candidate Q Coverage9/10Not attested
    AI PresenceThird-Party ValidatedSelf-Reported Only
    Brand SentimentPositiveMixed

    What BPI shipped to produce the gap

    Cited in DFIN's 10-K — the mark lives inside legally attested disclosure

    DFIN cites its Most Loved Workplace® certification inside its SEC 10-K annual report. That single citation is the strongest possible third-party signal an AI engine can find: legally attested, audit-bounded, in the official corporate record. No competitor employer-brand award lives inside a 10-K.

    Workforce Report + badge narratives produced the candidate-question coverage

    BPI shipped Workplace Report topic pillars (retention, manager quality, growth, flexibility) and BPI-authored badge-evidence narratives covering DFIN's affinity wins. The combined surface answers the top 10 candidate questions about DFIN with full FAQPage schema — which is why Candidate Q Coverage scored 9/10 against the top competitor's unattested surface.

    BPI feeds + pillars routed answer-engine traffic to DFIN, not to the competitor

    Perplexity, ChatGPT, and Claude increasingly cite mostlovedworkplace.com pages as the canonical source for 'what is it like to work at DFIN'. That citation routing is downstream of the badge proof pages, structured jobs feed, and Workforce Report pillars — none of which the peer competitor ships.

    Why it matters for Financial services

    Regulated-disclosure software is a hand-to-hand talent war over auditors, regulatory engineers, and compliance product managers. Whoever owns the answer to 'is DFIN or its top competitor a better place to work' inside the AI engines wins those candidates before a recruiter ever picks up the phone.

    Frequently asked questions

    What is DFIN's score on the Most Loved Workplace® Competitor Intel scoreboard?

    Donnelley Financial Solutions (DFIN) scored 90/100 on the BPI Competitor Intel scoreboard, +40 points over top competitor (50/100), across 8 employer-brand metrics.

    Where is Most Loved Workplace® cited in DFIN's corporate disclosures?

    DFIN cites its Most Loved Workplace® certification inside its SEC 10-K annual report — the strongest possible third-party signal because it is audit-bounded and legally attested.

    Is DFIN a Most Loved Workplace®?

    Yes. Donnelley Financial Solutions (DFIN) is an MLW-certified Most Loved Workplace®, validated by Best Practice Institute using the Love of Workplace Index™.

    Why did the top competitor have no score on Candidate Q Coverage?

    The peer competitor's employer-brand surface had no schema-attested answers to the top 10 candidate questions about working there, so there was no structured answer set to score — recorded as not attested.

    What does Most Loved Workplace® certification require?

    Companies must meet the LOWI threshold across the five SPARK dimensions — Systemic Collaboration, Positive Vision, Alignment of Values, Respect, Killer Achievement — measured by BPI's validated psychometric instrument.

    Methodology & sources

    Source: BPI Competitor Intel scoreboard — scoreboard run · June 12, 2026. Peer competitor anonymized. DFIN 10-K citation verified in SEC EDGAR. The 8 scoreboard metrics — Glassdoor, Indeed, Brand Sentiment, Culture Visibility, AI Presence, Candidate Question Coverage, Job Listings, and Certification — are documented in the BPI methodology. The Love of Workplace Index™ (LOWI) is the validated psychometric instrument behind every Most Loved Workplace® certification — see LOWI research methodology for validation detail (.95 coefficient alpha, 2.8M employees, 1,800+ organizations).

    Run this scoreboard for your company

    See if you can out-score top competitor — or whoever you're losing candidates to.

    Donnelley Financial Solutions (DFIN) closed a +40-point gap on the same 8-metric scoreboard. Answer 4 questions (60 seconds) to get your free CertCheck report and find out where you stand in Financial services — then book a review with our team.

    Best Practice Institute

    Best Practice Institute is the research organization behind Most Loved Workplace® certification, the SPARK Model, the Love of Workplace Index™ (LOWI™), and The Workplace Report.

    The Workplace Report

    The Workplace Report is BPI's original workplace culture research and editorial briefing series for CEOs, CHROs, people leaders, talent leaders, and employer-brand teams. It turns BPI's 25 years of research, Most Loved Workplace® certification data, SPARK findings, and current workforce signals into practical analysis leaders can use.

    The report format includes executive summaries, research-backed articles, company examples, methodology notes, and practical implications for retention, hiring, culture, leadership, and employee experience. New research and analysis is published on an ongoing editorial cadence at /workplace-report.