Behind the scenes at the
telco IR website rankings
By Dominic Jones, IR Web Report
This morning we published our rankings for the
best investor relations websites in the telecommunications
sector 2006. It was an interesting survey, not
so much for who was included in the best sites
group, but for who was not.
Only six out of the 33 large-cap telco companies
met a satisfactory standard to be recognized.
Telekom
Austria ranked highest with a comprehensive,
well-designed site. It was followed by Deutsche
Telekom of Germany, BCE Inc. of Canada, Portugal
Telecom (a new entrant), Verizon Communications
of the U.S. and TELUS Corp. of Canada.
All of the top group have solid websites that
cater to a variety of audiences. These companies
also demonstrate strong site management and
a firm understanding of investors' usability
requirements. There is nothing overly flashy
or leading edge about any of these companies'
sites, which is not a bad thing at all.
Overzealous designers
strut their stuff
Several of the companies we reviewed had some
fancy stuff going on, but often this was more
gratuitous than functional. These companies
have fallen prey to overzealous web designers
and developers who have no idea who the
audience is and don't much care so long as they
get to demonstrate their talents.
One such example is Telecom
Italia S.p.A. , which has a horrible
website once you start trying to use it. Oh,
it looks nice and seems impressive at first
glance, but try to actually find information
on the site (like what investor presentations
are coming up in the next three months), and
you'll soon be pulling your hair out.
What's worse is trying to read any of the stuff
the company puts out. It's dense, hard-slog
translated legalese. Horrendous. Usability
is nonexistent. The latest annual report, for
example, is 459-pages and available only in
one large PDF file. And that's not the worst
of it. But let's move on.
|
|
| Telecom
Italia dumps 459 pages in a PDF blob on
unsuspecting investors. There should be
a law against this sort of thing. |
Mourning the loss of the
old AT&T
Another big story was the big tumble out of
the top ranks by AT&T Inc. Consistently
one of the best in the sector, AT&T was
gobbled up by SBC in one of those mega
mergers. The old AT&T folks, who knew a
thing or two about investor relations on the
Web, were sent packing.
Today, what we have is the old SBC site under
the AT&T banner. Consequently, AT&T
has dropped from being one of the best to
being one of the worst.
The site
is now a mess. There is no navigation scheme
to speak of. If you want something in two or
more parts of the site, you have to return to
the IR homepage to find a link.
This problem is nothing new to the SBC crew.
A while back the company hired its existing
supplier — Fleishman
Hillard — to do a usability test on
the site. They came back saying there was nothing
wrong. Well, what do you expect? You can't have
the people who built the site also test it.
They cannot possibly be impartial. And, no,
we're not interested.
I get a little peeved when something good
is screwed up. AT&T had a good IR website
— and now it's been replaced by the acquirer's
rubbish website. That's a step backwards for
shareholders in my book.
Anyway, enough ranting about that.
IR sites are for investors,
no one else
One last thing I want to touch on is the problem
of overbearing information architecture designers.
These are the people who decide how a site should
be structured and how it should work. They are
extremely important to the success of an investor
relations website.
But often I see sites that are designed for
the designer or for the company website manager's
enjoyment rather than for investors' use. This
affects a number of companies that missed being
included in the top sites list.
I don't have room to go into the details, but
the basic rule of thumb to remember is that
if you are going to offer a section on your
site called Investor Relations or Investors,
then it had better provide everything investors
need. They shouldn't have to go looking for
stuff in other areas.
As long as the site makes sense to investors,
it really doesn't matter how difficult the site
is for the website manager to manage, or how
inefficient the architecture designer thinks
it is. The site's not for them. It's for investors.
Period.
Okay, so that's the scoop behind the scenes.
Now go check
out those sites.
Read our