9 September 2005
Global 100 companies need to improve usability on their websites a new report has revealed.
According to an in-depth comparison of the online annual reports of the S&P Global 100 Index, less than ten per cent are meeting basic requirements.
"Online usability of financial disclosures is essential for investors to easily stay informed about their investments in public company securities, particularly as companies begin to replace printed reports with web versions. Yet the vast majority of these mega-cap companies are failing to meet an acceptable usability standard," said IR Web Report president Dominic Jones.
The basic requirements for online annual reports are providing the entire report in navigable HTML for rapid online viewing and reference, offering full and segmented PDF files for printing and offline use and, giving investors downloadable spreadsheets of financial tables in the report for easier data importing and analysis.
"The eight companies meeting all the basic requirements deserve praise for making an effort to provide their online annual reports in formats that meet the varying needs of investors," said Mr Jones. "Clearly, these companies are trying to communicate their financial information effectively on the web."
BASF AG; Bayer AG, DaimlerChrysler; Deutsche Bank, Deutsche Telekom, IBM, Microsoft Corp., and Royal Dutch Shell all met these requirements.
Altria, General Electric and Repsol YPF all narrowly missed meeting the requirements. They satisfied every criteria except they did not provide spreadsheet downloads of their financial statement data, a key requirement for analysts and other experienced users.
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