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Leaders by metric

Top performers in serving key stakeholder groups

To see the complete rankings for each metric, download the interactive full results sheet in Excel or the data summary in PDF (registration required).

Serving society

Pos	Company	Score
1	BP	29
2	BHP Billiton	28
3	Coca-Cola	27

Reputation management is a big issue for many companies and several have realised that their website is a good place to tackle it. They have two main audiences: the general public and the burgeoning social responsibility profession, which is looking to measure performance against set standards.

Some companies have specific issues – one-off or rumbling – and use the web to tackle them. In the past year BP has built up a dossier of detail on the Texas City explosion – it does not exactly flag it, but does not hide it either. Coca-Cola gives a higher profile to its Coke Facts site, addressing issues such as water management at its Indian plants. And GlaxoSmithKline made an interesting one-off move last year when it used its home page to communicate rapidly with shareholders who had received hostile letters from an animal rights group. It will be interesting to see if more companies make use of this obvious, but somewhat neglected, noticeboard.

On the more positive side, HSBC is busy building its ‘sustainable’ image on one mini-site that is packed with engaging case studies and another that hosts a lively forum. Hewlett-Packard takes a different tack – it has a site helping customers save energy; the implication is that it must therefore be on the side of the good green guys.

Two developments at the less glamorous corporate social responsibility (CSR) end. First, more companies are showing how they stand up against benchmarks such as the Global Reporting Index. BHP Billiton’s online sustainability report can be gauged, using colour-coding, for compliance with the GRI guidelines and other indices. Second, corporate governance material is being made more accessible by intelligent use of the web’s functionality: look, for example, at Petrobras’ interactive diagram on the governance page – click to find out more. And if you work for Arcelor Mittal and want to spill some beans, go to the online whistleblower’s form – a sign of openness, whether or not it is used.

Serving investors

Pos	Company	Score
1	BP	28
2	Cisco Systems	27
	UBS	27
	Verizon Communications	27
	Vodafone	27

Investor relations teams are surrounded by an industry that wants to sell them all the ‘bells and whistles’ it can. But these are not necessarily what the ‘end customers’ need. The trick is to know what is really useful, and to provide it professionally.

We segment investor relations customers into three types: analysts/investors who follow the company; analysts/investors wanting to research it; and private shareholders. Sites that do well serve all three, but in a thoughtful rather than ‘throw it all in’ way. UBS provides analysts with a ‘create your own report’ feature, but does not give individuals a share price look-up, as many companies do. It probably has good reasons.

Individual shareholders should not be ignored, though many companies do and few take real care of them. BP is an exception, with its targeted help for ordinary share- and ADS holders, and the ‘Learn about investing’ section for the newcomer.

Among those who are thoughtfully helping the researcher, Cisco stands out with its Analyst Resources section, which includes specially-created videos and podcasts.

At the other end of the list are companies where the IR team takes little notice of the web. Some of these are surprising. Wal-Mart clearly does not think of its shareholders as another set of customers. Instead, it gives them a mix between a labyrinth and an old-fashioned library to negotiate. There is information here, but it is hard to find; and the service for private shareholders has managed to get even worse, with the disappearance of an introductory page for them.

Serving the media

Pos	Company	Score
1	Cisco Systems	28
2	IBM	26
	Unicredito Italiano	26
	Verizon Communications	26

This metric scores an average of 16.2, against 19.8 for investors and 19 for customers. That is not surprising: many press offices simply do not see the web as an important part of their service.

The more switched-on do, though, offering a simple but effective service based on a journalist’s need to get good information fast. Verizon, Unicredito and IBM score well by providing the basics very well: press releases that are easy to browse and search, comprehensive press contacts, useful press kits and excellent image libraries. Providing good downloadable pictures should be a killer application for these sites – picture desks hunting for photographs late at night find them a godsend.

Some companies go much further, using their sites to build and sustain a close relationship with the specialist press. IT companies are best placed to do this, because of the natural ‘wiredness’ of their community. Cisco and Hewlett-Packard pump the opportunity, filling their media areas with online tools for journalists: blogs, videos, podcasts, SMS and RSS feeds. These are buzzing advertisements for what the web can do if it tries.

A sad example at the other end of the table is PepsiCo – its approach is tokenist, with nothing but press releases, not particularly well organised. There is a case for saying that if the rest of the site has enough information, journalists will find what they need. That is not true here, and the absence of a contact number for journalists is a sign that the press office has yet to get its head round the medium.

Serving job seekers

Pos	Company	Score
1	Microsoft	27
2	UBS	26
3	Siemen5l	24

The website is the first calling point for most people looking for jobs. A few of the companies in the Index do not use their sites for recruitment – and some do only badly – but the great majority try quite hard. Most fall into one of two categories.

The first is in essence a labour exchange: look at our vacancies and apply online. Sophisticated search tools, CV filing and online applications processes are becoming standard, though a company such as Roche has an exceptionally refined system, including a sliding bar allowing job seekers to move from a broad search to an exact match.

Roche does not, however, attempt to enter the second category, companies that are using their sites to court candidates. Here is where to find the most interesting developments, with web technology and high-quality content stretched to appeal to a demanding, often young, audience. Microsoft gets it right with many upbeat videos showing what life is like in the company, as well as a mass of blogs. UBS has videos too, as well as ‘Assess Yourself’, a self-profiling device to help candidates understand where they would best fit in.

Sumitomo Mitsui has a pseudo virtual world in its Japanese-language careers site, while IBM has the real (or rather virtual) thing. Its student portal links to a series of ‘challenges’ in Second Life – this may (or may not) be a glimpse of the careers site of the future.

Serving customers

Pos	Company	Score
1	Royal Bank of Canada	29
2	Cisco Systems	27
	Nokia	27

Some companies are not trying to use their corporate site to help customers. The Russian sites come into this category; so, more surprisingly, does PepsiCo and the Italian bank, Unicredito Italiano. If this is a strategic decision, that is up to them, though the evidence from other companies is that a surprising number of consumers look at corporate sites, even when little information is provided for them.

It was this discovery that persuaded Unilever to switch from an investor to a consumer focus. Its large multinational web presence now offers consistent ‘journeys’, first to general brand information, then to country-specific sites. Feature material is mixed in on the way to make the site as attractive as possible. The trick is to inject engaging magazine-style content, but not in a way that slows journeys to decision or buying points.

Cisco provides routes to specific product and more general information, depending on whether customers know exactly what they want. Routes are also given by product name or sector, for the same reason. Then customers are bombarded with help: comparison tools, video, FAQs, product demonstrations, even online training seminars.

Royal Bank of Canada and Wells Fargo provide a similar combination of very clear journeys and plenty of help, and also let customers buy, apply or make contact from the site. These banks, along with several other financial services companies – especially in North America – have sites that are ruthlessly driven by the customer marketing imperative. Which would be fine, were it not for the fact that they are missing out unnecessarily on marketing to other groups, such as potential employees and investors.

To see the complete rankings for each metric, download the interactive full results sheet in Excel or the data summary in PDF (registration required).