Thiel : Going round the houses

Circuitous directions show an incomplete grasp of the web.

The Site

Thiel, a Germany-based logistics company, provides an unnecessarily circuitous route to its annual and financial reports from within its investor relations section.

The overview page of Investor Relations has a link from the section navigation to Annual Document where a list of recent financial reports (interim and annual) sits above a paragraph advising that the reports “are available for download from our website at www.thiel-logistik.com in the menu item ‘Reports’, which is located under the heading ‘Press’”. The URL quoted is linked to the site’s home page, while reports listed on the Annual Document page link directly to PDF versions. There are no HTML equivalents and the list on the page does not include the 2006 annual report and 2007 interims, which are included in the Reports page in Press and highlighted on the home page.

The Takeaway

Thiel’s introduction to its Investor Relations section says that it aims to provide investors and analysts “actively and promptly” with information “using the latest means of communication”. Its Annual Document page suggests it has still fully to grasp the possibilities or the best ways of doing so.

Two fundamental problems with the page reveal a less than sure hand. First, the addition of a detour to get from the page to target documents, complete with long-winded directions – it’s to be hoped the company’s delivery service doesn’t follow the same ‘round the houses’ policy. Why not link straight to the Reports page in Press or, even more direct, replicate the archive in Annual Document? This would also alleviate the second issue, the not-very-promptly-updated list of documents on the page. As it is, analysts and investors have to hunt around to find the latest financial reports (assuming their instincts tell them there must be more recent ones available). The reliance on PDF is an indication that Thiel still has a limited appreciation of the capabilities of this latest means of communication called the web.

First published on 21 August, 2007