Even given these pressures, in many cases the amount of management attention and time which goes into online investor relations strategy is usually tiny compared to that of the annual report or direct investor presentations. Perhaps this is because they get less feedback from the online activities or perhaps they don’t look at the web statistics and realise how many organisations are actually using the website.

Whichever is the case, it is clear from the findings of recent research and indeed from the stats we get to see about actual activity on PLC sites, the audience is big, active and growing.

To some degree what you do next depends on two key issues: first your communications strategy, second the state of your current website in terms of design and development.

Communications Strategy

This area is huge, but there are some initial things you can quickly resolve. In the first instance, the relationship with the commercial activities is important to understand as it affects messages and navigation. We see most organisations having three fundamental stakeholder groups they have to accommodate:

• The investor relations audience – institutions, private shareholders, analysts, etc.
• The corporate audience – staff, partners, local communities . . . anyone touched by the company.
• The commercial audience – your customers and consumers. 

To assume that the basic rules of marketing don’t apply to financial communications would be a mistake. As such, this initial segmentation allows far greater scope to appeal to the needs of each group more effectively. If this division is not clear in your mind then site navigation and structure is the place to start.

Once this principle is appreciated the division of responsibility is far easier. Your commercial director and marketing department are likely to have strong views on the overall branding and content in the commercial segments; your HR, CSR and corporate communications professionals are likely to want to take responsibility for key aspects of the corporate segment; and your Chairman, CEO, CFO and IR manager are likely to have quite strong views of the IR communications when they see it as a distinct division.

Development Structure

Second, your website design and development structure. It is a well- known fact in traditional construction that without firm foundations any project will sooner or later run into difficulty. Whilst the web is no different, there are many benefits to a more flexible, yet sound technical infrastructure. To best understand this we should look at some of the factors which make a website successful.

• Appropriate, well-structured and rich content
• Up-to-date news and events
• Intuitive navigation
• Designed for function then form

Indeed a good site needs to have the user, the message and the potential of the medium in mind from the outset. Each of these factors can lead to a complex set of decisions if left unbounded. Fortunately there are a range of standards and guidelines which help steer this path. At a technical level all companies should be looking to W3C guidelines (world wide web consortium) which provides some best practice in terms of making the content universally accessible and recognisable. Rule 26 makes a start at basic shareholder information, as does the Companies Act 2006, the transparency directive and other areas of guidance put forward by the FSA. Indeed all of these start to form what we would call ‘Best Practice’ if coupled with a sensible approach to being transparent.
The diagram above breaks out the core four quadrants to corporate reporting, where a 'best practice' infrastructure is constituted by the Law, Web and Bodies sections. Good communications however, needs to add in the 'Message' section where a cogent business concept and strong branding would make your organisation stand out from the crowd.

Where Does Rule 26 Leave You?

The diagram illustrates the limited nature of the publishing requirements Rule 26 imposes. Beyond forcing the more regular updating of major shareholding analysis, it still leaves the annual report as the most comprehensive contemporary source of information.

To move forward management must first begin to understand the possibilities of the internet and that like it or not it will become the dominant communication medium for all business. At the very least if there is little effort to enhance the content and structure of the site then the annual report can be made to work much harder. Moving it from a static PDF to an independent website in its own right is forward thinking and demonstrates commitment to leverage communication media appropriately and engage the audience.

At the next level the possibilities get more exciting - structure, content, linking and multimedia all help to build trust, deliver transparency and articulate the less tangible competencies which make the business the valuable entity it is. None of this need over-commit the organisation to a timetable of expected delivery or cause it to uncover commercially sensitive processes and technologies.

Increasing the production of sustainable economic rent remains the holy grail of business. Markets continue to use future cash flow projections as a key valuation tool and as such need to be able to see where the organisation is going and assess its ability to get there. This can only be done by reviewing a mix of track record, market opportunities, resources, capabilities and an assessment of the strategic flexibility the organisation possesses . . . enter the Web.