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PostNord new corporate website PostNord is the parent company of the joint group formed through the merger of Post Danmark A/S and Posten AB. The corporate website has been developed through a number of releases and the new version, released last week, features an updated visual profile. The website is multi-language website supporting three languages, [...]
- PostNord new corporate website
PostNord is the parent company of the joint group formed through the merger of Post Danmark A/S and Posten AB. The corporate website has been developed through a number of releases and the new version, released last week, features an updated visual profile.
The website is multi-language website supporting three languages, Swedish, Danish and English with content structured and optimized for corporate target groups such as media, journalists, potential future investors as well as those interested in working at any of PostNords businesses.
The website does not utilize Flash for animations or other interaction in order to make it fully usable on mobile devices and tablets such as iPhone and iPads
Visit the website at http://www.postnord.com
As a country, Finland defends its number one position in KWD Webranking’s 2011 survey of 950 websites in 40 countries. Results show that the 50 largest Finnish publicly traded companies excel in delivering the corporate, financial and shareholder information demanded by stakeholders in these troubles times. Nevertheless, there is an air of modesty over the Finns. Few mention their financial achievements, it is rare to find key strengths packaged into an investment case and boasting about the corporate brand seems to be a concern for one company only – Fortum. Nevertheless, it is Neste Oil that wins the annual ranking of corporate websites in Finland.
As a country, Finland strongly defends its number one position in Europe of producing the best corporate websites according to the demands of the capital market.
When comparing European countries, Finnish companies – just as in 2010 – make the best home pages, about us-, financial reporting-, IR- and Corporate governance sections.
Finland also lands in 1st place when it comes to informing about risk management on the corporate website – 82% describe the operational and/or financial risks and how they intend to react should they become a reality. Furthermore, Finnish companies provide to the highest extent information regarding market shares and are transparent with the company peer group and competitors.
Clear financial targets but little is said about achievements
3 out of 4 Finnish companies have a presentation of their financial goals and/or a description on how to reach them. This is the highest score in Europe. However, only 40% inform of their target achievements and well below half (40%) provide both targets and achievements on the website.
Investment cases are rare
With the capital market looking for a reason to invest – very few Finnish sites do a successful job in presenting an investment case. Merely 30% of the biggest companies in Finland take the time and effort to clearly outline their investment case on the corporate website.
Few recognise the power of the brand
All in all, 14 companies (28%) present and define the corporate brand on the website whereof Fortum is the only one giving information about how the company is working to preserve and strengthen the brand towards its stakeholders.
Film is an issue
In times when viewing, uploading and sharing videos over the internet is increasingly popular, only nine of Finland’s largest companies provide corporate films on their corporate website introducing the company. None provide embedded corporate films which can be downloaded.
Social media channels are not used to its full potential
With social media channels dramatically increasing the opportunities for corporate stakeholder dialogues and strengthening online corporate presence, it is not surprising that 49 out of 50 companies have a presence in social media channels. However, relatively few (36%) have a link between their website and their social media channels. Even less (12%) take the opportunity to link the home page to their Twitter feed, Facebook page and YouTube channel.
How rankings have changed over the year
The average score for Finnish corporate websites is 55.89 points out of 100 points, a drop with 2.14 points compared to 2010. The Finnish result is however far better than the average score for the 500 largest companies by market cap listed in Europe (44.17 points).
After two consecutive years ranked as Finland’s second best corporate website, Neste Oil claims the throne from Fortum with 79.25 points out of 100. Fortum lands soundly in 2nd place (78.50 points) and Rautaruukki climbs from 6th place in 2010 to 3rd in 2011 (74.5). Ranked 23rd in 2010, Outotec makes a remarkable leap landing in 7th place and thereby joining the top 10. The mining company Talvivaaran, the only newcomer to the survey, landed on the 41st place.
Tikkurila – this year’s climber
Climbing with 17.75 points and going from 51st place in 2010 to 23rd in 2011, Tikkurila improved its score the most since 2010 in the ranking of the 50 largest companies in Finland.
| Rank 2011 | Company | Points |
| 1 | Neste Oil | 79.25 |
| 2 | Fortum | 78.50 |
| 3 | Rautaruukki | 74.50 |
| 4 | Wärtsilä | 74.25 |
| 5 | Metso | 68.00 |
| 6 | Kesko | 67.00 |
| 7 | Outotec | 66.00 |
| 8 | TeliaSonera | 65.75 |
| 9 | Outokumpu | 64.50 |
| 10 | Nokia | 63.75 |
Read the notice in Kauppalethi (in Finnish)
The Swedish results in KWD Webranking 2011 (formerly conducted under the brand H&H Webranking), were published today in the Swedish financial newspaper Dagens Industri. SCA wins the annual ranking of corporate websites in Sweden, receiving 80.5 points out of 100 points. SCA is also the only company among the Swedish top tier to improve its performance. Last year’s winner Swedish Match settles for third place with 73.5 points. The silver medal goes to SKF with 73.75 points.
For the fifteenth consecutive year, KWD Webranking has surveyed corporate websites of the largest listed companies to evaluate how they address the online information needs of their diverse institutional audiences.
Previously known as H&H Webranking, KWD Webranking includes the FT Europe 500 and the 100 largest companies in FT Global 500. The corporate websites of the 100 largest listed companies in Sweden are included in the survey.
SCA’s strengths
One of several strengths in SCA’s corporate website is the section dedicated to the credit market covering the company’s risk management. SCA also publishes important corporate events every month giving the visitor not only an historical retrospect but also the possibility to evaluate the company in the long term. They’ve been doing this since 2008. Furthermore, SCA excels in social media and search.
Swedish scores fall overall
This year, Sweden receives as a country, a lower average score and slips down by two notches to a seventh place, from last year’s fifth place. Sliding from 51 to 43.5 points, the average score drops 7.5 points.
A clear majority of the Swedish companies, 76 of the 91 comparative companies, have received lower scores compared to 2010. Nine companies have increased their scores whereas six remain unchanged.
The ranked companies are ranked based on the expectations investors, analysts, business journalists, young professionals and jobseekers have on a corporate website. In this year’s ranking, emphasis has been placed on websites responding better to target group needs and providing English content on the corporate website (English content is now a requirement and a standard for Swedish companies as well).
On average, Swedish companies perform well in the IR and Corporate Governance sections of the survey but receive lower scores in the Press, Career and Corporate Responsibility sections. Other challenges they are faced with, is providing information regarding branding, future targets, research and development. Descriptive data regarding company peers and market shares is also inadequate.
Finland remains unchallenged
The trend with high performing Northern European countries in the top is unchanged. Finland continues to surpass with the highest average country score in Europe, followed by Germany, Denmark and the United Kingdom.
Byggmax is the best climber
Byggmax, the supplier of building materials in the Nordic region, recently launched its new websites and is this year’s best climber in Sweden, rising with 11 points. Steel manufacturer SSAB is in second place in the climbers’ list followed by the property company Fabege. Social media and corporate applications Elekta, SAAB, Stora Enso, SCA and Trelleborg outshine in social media. 33 out of the 100 Swedish companies have English corporate applications available on Appstore and 24 have applications on Android Markets.
- Article in Dagens Industri, October 31 2011, sid 11
- Article in Resumé, November 3 2011, sid 19
- Pressmaterial H&H Webranking 2011 (In Swedish only)
- Results Sweden
About KWD Webranking
Existing since 1997, KWD Webranking is the established international yardstick for companies that want to benchmark their corporate website performance both nationally and internationally.
950 corporate websites in more than 40 different countries have been included in the 2011 survey KWD Webranking. In Sweden corporate websites of the 100 largest listed companies have been ranked.
The survey is based on a protocol consisting of 120 criteria. The protocol is adjusted every year based on an annual study finding out what the capital market; business journalists, students and job seekers expect from a corporate website. The study includes 500 respondents.
In recent years IR, social media, CR, Employer Branding and management of company brands have increased in importance.
Contacts for more information
KWD
Staffan Lindgren, Managing Director,
International Telephone + 46 8 407 22 12
E-mail staffan.lindgren@kw-digital.com
Hallvarsson & Halvarsson
Marcus Eriksson, research
Telephone + 46 8 407 22 17
E-mail marcus.eriksson@halvarsson.se
Analysts and business journalists – two of the most important target groups for corporate websites. So how do they use your website?
The last few years have seen important changes in behaviour of all audiences. Corporate information is now available on a multitude of formats such as laptops, mobiles, iPads and other devices and from an array of channels such as blogs, Twitter and Wikipedia. It’s not just on the corporate website. So where do your key audiences go and when?
Analysts and business journalists – two of the most important target groups for corporate websites. So how do they use your website?
The last few years have seen important changes in behaviour of all audiences. Corporate information is now available on a multitude of formats such as laptops, mobiles, iPads and other devices and from an array of channels such as blogs, Twitter and Wikipedia. It’s not just on the corporate website. So where do your key audiences go and when?
Target groups say they use the websites
According to our research undertaken in May 2011, analysts and business journalists said they use corporate websites to find specific information about a company. But as we all know, what people say and what they do is sometimes different.
Our analysis reveals that corporate websites are increasingly important as a factual information source because they are the single point of reference for verified information. In a multi-channel environment, they are the one place where companies can present all information about the company and its performance to different audiences in a structured way.
Our approach
Step 1 – Identify and analyse key visitor groups: analysts and business journalists
To find out how analysts and business journalists behave on corporate websites, KWD analysed the traffic from several major financial institutions as well as major business dailies such as Financial Time and news sources such as Reuters and Bloombergs. We created a key visitor analysis metric based on where users are coming from and tracked their movements around sites.
Step 2 – Select websites to analyse
Our study covered six large websites that scored strongly in the KWD Webranking 2010. The companies were based in Sweden, UK and the Netherlands and all were December year ends. We used the combined total traffic of the sites and extracted the site behaviour of the analysts and business journalists.
Step 3 – Analyse the data
With the data from the target audiences logged, we were able to identify their behaviours and analyse the trends. The business journals and financial institutions we tracked visited the sites frequently throughout the period and consumed a significant amount of content.
There are several other interesting trends we can observe from the data just by looking at the usage patterns.
Fact 1 – Financial reporting drives traffic to website
Traffic gradually increased towards the reporting dates and peaked on the actual day the financial information was published. There was a rapid drop of traffic after publication.
Traffic patterns:
Full year reports coming out
Annual General meetings, annual report as well as Q1
Q2 report is published
Christmas holiday
Full year reports
Annual General meetings, annual report as well as Q1
Q2 report in the middle of summer
Q3 end of October
Fact 2 – 50 % of the traffic consistently returns
Whilst traffic levels dropped by approx. 50 % between the more intense periods, as shown by the red lines below, these sites were still retaining 50 % of the target group who consistently returned. During the quieter periods investor relations sections, whilst not updated, still provided an important source of corporate information.
As a result, there are two communication opportunities:
- focus on developing the precise messaging of your website a week before, during and after a reporting event as these periods are when the target audience will visit your website most frequently
- continue to review and refine your messages during non-peak periods as a significant proportion of the audience continue to return
Fact 3 – Traffic is on average higher during Q1
It’s no surprise that traffic on average is higher during the first quarter of the year. The first three months of the year for companies with December year ends are an intense period with full year reports and a considerable focus on their corporate and financial performance. Although it is also the period with least time available for content managers, it is also the period during the year when companies get the greatest exposure and highest return on their website communication.
Summary
I interpret this as evidence supporting that our key audience for Investor Relations and corporate websites really use and appreciate the websites in their professional work. Our key facts in summary are:
Financial reporting drives key traffic to the site
50 % of the traffic consistently returns, even during slow seasons
Traffic is on average higher during the first quarter
You should leverage these findings in your planning of communication activities to best meet your target group needs as well as making your communication as efficient and effective as possible.
A majority of the companies intend to improve the Investor and CSR sections and most also believe the website will become even more important during 2011.
The companies also believe that the most important factor for a successful corporate website is a constant flow of new content and updates. This reflects the importance of making the corporate site the main communication channel for the company.
All of these findings are available in this year’s KWD IR and web manager survey. The report is published as open research under a Creative Commons license.
- KWD Webranking Forum, London
