Worldwide, an increasing number of large cap companies start to present their annual financial reports online. It is time for this year’s ranking of world-leading online HTML-reports.
All companies listed on FTSE, DAX, MDAX, SMI Extended and AEX participated in this benchmark. They self-evaluated their current online report as well as being reviewed by experts of the company GeBer, specialists in the field of online financial reporting. 58 questions that cover fields like Online Format, Service, Access, and Usability,… added up to a ranking of 378 companies, that clearly shows a difference between countries.
The top three results of FTSE listed companies were taken by Cadburry Schweppes, Rexam and Aviva, with quite some distance to the rest of the pack. All three reached more than 60%, clearly more than an average rating. But compared to German online reports, they still have some ground to gain. While British reports keep up the pace with their modern designs and deliver an extraordinary first impression, they lose points with usability shortcomings and a lack of features, which would make a visitor’s life much easier.
German companies dominate the ranking with 9 of the Top-10 places. Deutsche Bank takes the overall win with 89,4%, closely followed by Deutsche Post and RWE. They distance other competitors with an extraordinary richness of features like glossary links, feedback forms, download shopping carts, interactive charts, and sophisticated search options.
37 of the 100 FTSE listed companies provide their current Annual Financial Report as a full HTML implementation. That is a slight decrease since last year’s record number of 39 online reports. Implementations as JPG-Shows lost ground for the second consecutive year to reach a total of 23 at present. The reason for that development seems to be the perception that JPG-Shows, other than full HTML implementations, do not provide a significant benefit over the simple PDF downloads.
In a JPG-Show, every page of the printed report is available as a picture wrapped by a HTML framework for navigation. Often acclaimed as “interactive”
Top Results of FTSE-100 listed Companies
Rank Company Result
1 Cadbury Schweppes 63%
1 Rexam 63%
3 Aviva 62%
4 Capita Group 55%
5 Hanson 53%
5 Rentokil Initial 53%
5 Royal & Sun Alliance
5 Insurance Group 53%
5 Royal Dutch Shell 53%
9 British Land 52%
10 3i Group 51%
10 Pearson 51%
12 Wolseley 50%
13 Sainsbury 49%
14 Barclays 48%
14 Imperial Tobacco 48%
14 Liberty International 48%
The complete list of all reviewed Reports as well as a detailed analysis can be found at http://www.geber.at/
