Introducing the World's Best IR Websites™ program

By Dominic Jones, IR Web Report

After a year of ranking investor relations websites behind closed doors, we are today coming out of the shadows with an exciting new recognition program aimed at encouraging companies to use the Internet to democratize corporate reporting information.

The World's Best IR Websites™ program will publicly recognize the best investor relations websites by sector and in several categories on a staggered basis throughout the year. Only the best sites will be publicly announced, meaning that those whose sites don't make the grade will not face any public scrutiny.

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Long-time readers will recall that prior to February 2005, IR Web Report's rankings were publicly accessible for all the world to see. This was a negative approach because rather than celebrate the best IR websites, it tended to make most companies look bad. This was a major reason we decided to close public access to our rankings. We want to inspire best practice, not make you look bad.

Of course, by closing access we have not been able to recognize companies that are excelling in their online investor relations communications. This is a shame, because these companies are examples for other companies to emulate. We all can benefit from their expertise.

Enter the World's Best IR Websites™ program.

To be designated as World's Best IR Websites™, sites must achieve a total score above a certain threshold in our evaluation of 133 attributes focused on companies' investor relations sections.

Companies designated as having World's Best IR Websites™ will have the right to use a logo that links to a public web page where investors and other stakeholders can learn more about the significance of the designation.

Democratizing investment information
By recognizing companies with the best IR websites, we hope to encourage more companies to use the Web effectively. This can benefit all investors because the Internet has the ability to democratize access to corporate information and lead investors to make more informed investment decisions.

I have a background in journalism. I was drawn into this field while working at the public education foundation of the Canadian Securities Institute, the official securities industry educator. My job was to design programs to teach ordinary citizens about the capital markets and investing so that they could make better, more informed decisions.

It was there that I learned that most communications programs from the industry and public companies out to the public fail because they are too complex, difficult to access and presented in ways that are ineffective. There was then, and still exists today, a strong feeling among retail investors that the dice are loaded against them, that the capital market system and securities industry are inherently unfair.

I realized then that the Internet had the power to democratize the markets. It could be a powerful force for good in a vibrant and fair capital market. Good examples of this are:

However, I believe that it is not enough to simply give all investors access to the same information, especially when the vast majority of investors lack the ability to effectively interpret and understand the information they're given. To be truly effective, investor relations communication professionals must step up and apply their considerable skills to making online investment information easier to use and understand.

That has been our mission at IR Web Report since day one — to encourage companies to build better investor relations websites that can engage and inform investors while at the same time saving companies money and improving their profile. The win-win we wrote about when this site first went live has never changed.

The companies we will be recognizing all have one thing in common: they are trying to communicate better. They aren't perfect, and some even have made grave errors in the past, but our evaluations suggest that they are pouring substantial effort into making their information more accessible, easier to use and easier to understand.

They deserve all the encouragement we can give them.

 

Related: See the World's Best IR Websites™ announcements

 

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