BHP Billiton has emerged as the SA company that makes the most effective use of the Internet to communicate with investors, prospective business partners and potential employees.
The mining group has come out as the top performer in the FM's annual Best Corporate Websites Award, followed by Coronation Fund Managers and Nedbank Group in second and third places respectively.
WHAT IT MEANS
 Award is for best use of the Internet to reach investors, jobseekers and business partners
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The FM once again commissioned BlueRiverStone to evaluate the corporate websites of the top 100 JSE-listed companies by looking at their technical quality, the usability of the website and the ability to respond to an e-mail/webform-based inquiry. The evaluation was conducted from the perspective of three classes of user: an investor, a potential customer and a jobseeker.
This year the FM and BlueRiverStone made changes to the annual awards, previously known as the online communications index. Websites were evaluated against 200 metrics, four times more than in 2005, to support the rebranding of the index as a fully fledged award.
Companies listed on the JSE and AltX which fell outside the Top 100 when research started, were also invited to submit their websites for evaluation. Though 50 extra slots were reserved for such companies, only five applied.
BlueRiverStone MD Ian Kruger says the research provides listed companies with an objective benchmark that they can use to measure the quality of their online communications against their peers and competitors. "The website represents the organisation to a range of stakeholders. As far as an online user is concerned, the website is the entire organisation at the moment he is using it."
A frustrating experience on a corporate website can damage the organisation's brand and reputation in the eyes of an investor, potential customer or prospective employee, he adds.
The best performers in the 2005 index made way for newcomers to the top 10. Last year's best performer, Alexander Forbes, tumbled to number 20 on the index, while Liberty Group fell from second place to 49.
BHP Billiton rocketed up to number one from 49 in 2005, while Nedbank ranked 67 last year and Coronation was not evaluated. Other strong performers included AngloGold Ashanti (up to four from 36) and Telkom (in fifth position, up from 11). Barloworld, Anglo American, African Bank Investments, Investec and Massmart round out positions 6-10.
The expanded metrics mean it is difficult to make meaningful comparisons between the 2005 and 2006 indexes, says Kruger. However, the volatility in the rankings each year indicates that the Web landscape is still moving fast and standards are rising. Companies that are at the forefront of best practice need to keep investing in every aspect of their websites to stay there.
The company that fared most poorly this year was Sycom Property Fund, which came in at position 105.
Companies rounding out the bottom five were Assore (101); Hosken Consolidated Investments (102); Italtile (103); and Liberty Holdings (104).
Most of the websites were built on a solid technology platform and offer good technical performance, but fell short in areas such as navigability, content and dynamic functionality (such as personalisation options or registering a CV). On a scale of 1-100, the average score for the technical index stood at 88,82 and the highest at 99,55. The average quality of online service experience index was only 37,31, while the highest score was 53,65.
"On the whole, the technical quality of the websites exceeds the quality of the service experience they deliver. It seems that usability issues are more difficult to get right than the underlying technology," says Kruger.
Of the three user classes used for evaluation, people looking for investment information were served the best by the companies evaluated in the research. Companies across the board delivered a poor set of online services and information to jobseekers looking for employment information (see page 96).
Surprisingly few of SA's top listed companies are making effective use of their websites to support commerce with potential customers.
BlueRiverStone started out its research with comprehensive metrics that supported every step in the buying process, from information-seeking to post-purchase behaviour. Many of these were later scrapped because most websites didn't offer the functionality.
The commerce scores were weighted by the maximum per industry sector since a mining house can't be expected to deliver the same amount of commerce functionality as a retailer. If there was a clear link between a corporate website and that of a group or subsidiary's e-commerce portal, the site was scored higher because it facilitates commerce for persistent users.
As might be expected, consumer services, financial services and telecommunications firms generally performed the best in the commerce scenario. Truworths International led the pack, but fellow consumer services firms Ellerine Holdings and Italtile came near the bottom of the list. The health care and technology sectors performed worse than the oil & gas, basic materials and industrial sectors - an unexpected outcome.
Scores for the investor relations scenario were generally higher than for the recruitment and commerce scenarios. The highest investor relations score was 75,42 (out of a possible 100) and the average was 46,23. Last year's overall winner, Reunert, achieved the highest score for the investor relations scenario, while Liberty Holdings came in last with a score of 18,33.
By contrast, the highest score for commerce was 54,68 and the average was 32,56, while the highest score for the recruitment scenario was 57,35 and the average a dismal 19,23.
