Corporate Eye

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Archives for 2007

Spotted: CSR blog

I’ve seen one! Addleshaw Goddard have a blog maintained by their CSR manager, and contributed to by one of their recruitment team who is working on a community project. Recruitment blogs are increasingly available, usually written by new recruits to explain to potential recruits what the first year or so will be like – but this is the first CSR blog I’ve noticed.

Addleshaw Goddard

This site has a CSR quiz, to help you assess the weight your company places on each of the four main quadrants of CSR (environment, marketplace, people, community), and then – very interestingly – stacks this up against the responses provided by others.
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The CSR section: visitor services

Naturally, the CSR reports will be available from the CSR section, just as the financial reports will be available from the IR section, but I think that the smaller services provided to the visitor in the IR section should be replicated in CSR.

Just as the investor section should have FAQs, a glossary, contacts and a calendar, I believe that the CSR section should have the same content and functionality – including the events calendar.
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Naming the insiders: Stora Enso

If appropriate, companies should have an insider trading policy, and this should be clearly communicated to everyone concerned. Then everybody knows what is expected.

Stora Enso provide their policy online, but also go one step further by listing those individuals who qualify as insiders – and to whom, therefore, the policy applies. I have also seen the ‘closed periods’ listed, during which these people may not trade in the company securities, but it isn’t there at the moment. Perhaps this information is only provided around those periods.

Stora Enso Insider Trading Policy

Favicons: mini branding opportunities

Set of FTSE 100 faviconsWhile browsing the FTSE 100 corporate sites this week, I was struck by how few use a favicon – less than 30%.

For those who don’t know, a favicon is the tiny icon that represents your site in the address bar (next to the URL), or in someone’s list of favourites or bookmarked sites, or in the tabs of a tabbed browser, such as Firefox or IE7. You should see one for this site – a small tick.

It is a tiny piece of web estate – 16px by 16px – but why not use it to reinforce the brand?

Most of those favicons I found today are immediately identifiable – I’ve put them in the image, above. Obviously those high street brands which have been heavily advertised have an advantage here. But every time the favicons are seen, it reinforces the brand of that company. Given how valuable every pixel can be on, say, a home page, it would seem a mistake to ignore this tiny square of space, which, after all, is available, and can’t be used – yet – by anyone else. Though, thinking about it – how long until people sell their favicon space for advertising?

Dan Taylor has an interesting article about use of favicons at his blog Fabric of Folly, in which he discusses the various approaches that could be taken to designing a favicon. Definitely worth reading if you’re thinking of implementing one.

TNT: third party comments available

TNT in the news

Are you confident that all the news published about your company is good news – or, at least, that there aren’t going to be any unpleasant surprises?

TNT display confidence in themselves as they publish reports written by external sources about themselves on their own site.

Provision of this kind of third party news and comment about a company can be a useful source of information for both investors and other journalists, and certainly makes their research easier.

TNT will naturally review all mentions of themselves in the newspapers and other journals, and I trust that there is no veto on publishing critical third party news articles on the TNT site.

Just as important as reviewing the newspapers and financial journals for mention of your company is review of what is being said online. Does your company have someone who monitors what bloggers and other online commentators are saying? Did you pick up this post through a Google Alert?

Please contact me if you would like more information on how best to monitor what is being reported about your company online.

Share charts in accessible formats

Why not provide your share charts for investors in accessible formats?
Halfords accessible share charts
Halfords provide large font charts, and charts for people who are colour blind. Given that many investors must need charts of this nature, this seems like a good and helpful service.

I notice that Serco, who used to be among my favourite examples of companies who did this, because they even included an option for a chart accessible to voice browsers, have now removed all these accessible charting options. I wonder why?

Serco - old share charts
Serco’s accessible charting, dated six or so months ago.
Serco - new share charts
The same page today.