The IR Web Sites of 2000 and Beyond

The IR Web Sites of 2000 and Beyond

It is safe to say that most Web sites in use in the first years of the millenium will be grossly under utilized, mainly because of poor strategic design and a continuing lack of attention. The vast majority of corporate sites at mid-1999 are pretty decrepit and good production takes time, thus, it will be awhile before the larger number of corporate Web sites get up to speed.

And, as the AIMR (Association for Investment Management and Research) made clear with its survey of members earlier this year, analysts are not finding corporate Web sites terribly impressive. That means they will be slow to revisit even sharply improved sites without a lot of cajoling and outright promotion of the new sites.

So, what will take the spotlight? What will grow and endure?

As has been the case for the several years of the first few stages of Web site design and execution, the technology leaders will dominate at producing the best and most useful Web sites. Within those, the IR professionals who set the pace in delivering quality IR to their constituents will ensure they use the Internet, as is the case generally today.

Intel will probably maintain the top spot -- they are the hands down leaders today, coupling their online strategies with their offline strategies. The 1998 Annual Report is one of the slimmest any company of their size has produced in modern times and it is plastered with directives effectively shouting "Get Thee to the Net!!"

The reason? That’s where ALL the information is. Intel was the first company to use its symbol as an Internet pointer (URL) to the IR sub-section of their Web Presence. Take a look at www.intc.com. There one finds all the information a leading IR practitioner would publish for any user -- institutional or day trader. Connections to other parts of the Intel Web presence build an awesome mountain of information about products, strategies and the rest of the business. And it has all been purpose-built for screen presentation -- not rehashed print material.

Others in the lead are Nortel Networks at www.nortel.com with a fast-loading, easy-to-use site, chock full of what Wall Streeters want to know. And then, there is my long-standing favorite, Colgate, at www.colgate.com. In addition to making a comprehensive IR package, they were the first company to place the investment thesis for the stock right smack on IR home page. Why fix what ain’t broke? The IR Home page is the same as it was three years ago -- one of the few on the entire Internet that can justify no change; they had it right the first time.

These are among the best of the best -- costly, complex sites where teams of experts have worked to build what works. There are many more in this league, but still a minority of all Web locales. Will the average company, or especially the small company, be able to match this? In most cases, no. But then again, why should they?

The quality deliverable in Investor Relations is the overall service to the end-user. The net is just one of the means to that end and should be regarded as such. Moreover, we now have more than half a dozen real helpers as regards the Net presence for corporate IR.

This April, PRNewswire, the leading distributor of Press Releases and a supplier of many Web services, introduced a new modular solution for IR officers in the US. I was the senior advisor to the team which developed the product, which is called "vIRtual IQ".

Look at the IR sections for Internet America at http://199.230.26.96/geek or at Centex at http://199.230.26.96/ctx/ [Editor'e Note: this URL has become extinct since the publication of this article] for living examples of tailored IR sections actually produced and managed by PRNewswire, using data feeds supplied by Reuters. PRN also sells the very first product of this genre ever introduced, "Reuters Inc.Link," which got serious competition in 1997 when CCBN came on the scene with its now popular "IReye". They are all now joined by at least four other companies selling such packages. You can expect they will be running portions of IR site for a very large number of companies. Indeed, all together, they already serve more than 2,000 listed companies today.

These sites, if not all the vendors, will endure. The marketplace will require the key players to stay on top of the best in IR for the Net as well as the most useful technologies. It is important to recognize that building a website is not for everyone and is about to grow much more demanding.

New technologies like XML (Extensible Markup Language), much higher power chips than today’s Pentium III and very wide pathways on the Internet will join a host of new applications to cascade into the Web world over the next few years. Much will change, yet again.

It is possible for a small to medium sized firm to do a good job with their Web IR, and we can expect some standouts among the more venturesome. One favorite today is Cooper Companies at www.coopercos.com. It looks like the IRO hijacked the company Web presence-- this site is pretty much only IR. There are at least a dozen other such locales where the IRO has taken the lead and created a good site for their company while the rest of the firm is dozing through the Net revolution.

But as stated earlier, keeping up with it all is going to be increasingly difficult. The most important thing an IRO can do in the face of this is concentrate on the messages and find some experts you can trust to help lead the way. Look to the leadership for that because while there will be new players flooding the field as the Internet allows them to jump in, it will be the pros who dominate. Hold on -- this will be better than some of the rides at Disneyworld.

[This is an unedited version of the article which appeared in the Summer 1999 edition of IRQ, the quarterly journal of the National Investor Relations Institute]