Transparency and the Sustainability Agenda | FTSE 100 Website Reviews
March 10, 2010
General Industrials is one of those catch all phrases within the London Stock Exchange. It’s not quite an “and everything else” hold all, but neither is it particularly specific about what the companies do. They just do industry.. generally.
There are only two General Industrial companies within the FTSE 100: Smiths Group, and Rexam.
Smiths focuses upon threat & contraband detection, medical devices, energy, communications and engineered components, while Rexam is the world’s second largest consumer packaging group and a leading global beverage can maker.
There’s no particular reason for them to be in competition with each other, other than the fact they both fit into this “other” category. Read more
What Makes for Effective Investor Relations Sites? Part 12: Remember the Debt Side of the Balance Sheet
March 9, 2010
Most company investor relations web sites are entirely equity oriented and ignore the company’s debt. I’m not quite sure why this is, as many companies have a significant part of their funding that is derived from the credit markets. Perhaps it comes from the fact that most corporate debt is held by institutional investors who have access to proprietary trading screens, or perhaps it derives from the fact that the banking and treasury department is often separate from investor relations, but you can look long and hard before you find much information on most companies’ web sites that relates to their debt.
By failing to more publicly disclose this aspect of their financial structure companies are doing a disservice, certainly to retail holders of their bonds, but also to holders of their equity. Debt burden, that is, the total amount of debt your company has, is important information. As is your debt maturity schedule, which will tell investors when your debt comes due, cash flow requirements and how much immediate refunding risk you may have. Rating agency debt ratings are handy shorthand guides to a company’s overall credit quality and also merit attention. In short, there are many important items of information regarding a company’s debt that go into an investment decision, regardless of whether an investor is a debt or equity holder. Usually this information is spread out between the balance sheet, cash flow statement and regulatory filings, or sometimes, in the case of Debt Ratings, not disclosed by the company at all. It doesn’t make sense for a company to force investors to hunt for the information when the company has it readily at hand. Therefore, a well thought out section informing investors of a company’s debt profile should be included in effective investor relations web sites.
One company that does a pretty good job with their debt information is ENI, the Italian energy company. The screen shot that I have included shows a main debt page discussing their debt policy and overall debt levels. Other pages, which can be seen listed on the left of the page, debt rating, maturity (and currency) profile and the schedule of maturing debt. More companies should do this.
eBay Launches New Green Brand Message
March 9, 2010
“The greenest product is the one that already exists. Choose to reuse with the eBay Green Team.” That’s the new slogan for eBay’s new environmentally friendly brand message, and the debate is going strong — is eBay greenwashing or is the new eBay green message appropriate?
According to Greenpeace (via the New York Times), reusing items can benefit the environment, so the new brand message is valid. Items listed for sale on the new Green eBay site are either pre-owned or sustainable as determined by eBay’s green team who qualifies all listed items.
Greening eBay is just one step the company is taking to try to recoup the profits they’ve been losing in recent years. Other niche eBay sites have launched with more coming in the pipeline.
I think the question now is whether or not the new Green eBay will attract new customers to shop with eBay or if it will just shift existing eBay users to the new niche site. In other words, will a green brand message drive significant amounts of business to eBay?
Green marketing has lost a bit of its fanaticism over the course of the last two years as economic problems took precedence in consumers’ minds over environmental problems, so it could be argued that a Green eBay message is a bit late. On the other hand, there is that old saying, “better late than never.”
I should mention that the eBay Green Team blog ties in very nicely to the new Green eBay site, complete with green news and information about how eBay and its employees are pitching in to help the environment. Adding that human element and trying to demonstrate that eBay ‘walks the walk’ is an important part of the believability of the new eBay green brand message.
Perhaps in time, consumers really will make a conscious effort to purchase a used item to help the environment rather than doing so simply to save money. Now that would be a huge accomplishment for eBay which would transcend simply boosting the bottom-line (although I have to assume that stockholders would disagree, unfortunately).
What do you think of the new green eBay brand message?
"New" Fortune 100 Best Companies to Work For: Part 1
March 8, 2010
The February 28th edition of CBS’s popular Sunday Morning show led with a profile of SAS, the top shop in this year’s Fortune 100 Best Companies to Work For. But the title of the story wasn’t “Workers in Paradise”—it was: “The Great American Paycheck Squeeze.”
Fortune explains the choice for first place:
SAS boasts a laundry list of benefits — high-quality [onsite] child care at $410 a month, 90% coverage of the health insurance premium, unlimited sick days, a medical center staffed by four physicians and 10 nurse practitioners (at no cost to employees), a free 66,000-square-foot fitness center and natatorium, a lending library, and a summer camp for children.
There’s more about the culture (based on “trust between our employees and the company”), the continuity of leadership, the profitability of the company, and so on. But the big deal is obviously the Edenic workplace, which also boasts 40 miles of running trails, a hair salon, three subsidized cafeterias, an onsite massage therapist (of course), and an artist-in-residence program.
So what could possibly be wrong with this picture?
As the Sunday Morning story observes: “The reality is, for more and more Americans in these recessionary times, SAS might as well be Disney World.”
There’s an inherent discontinuity in the list between what we might call the “campus” companies, where life is made easy for employees (Intel, Intuit, Genentech, Qualcomm, the list goes on) and the “shirt sleeve” companies, where employees are offered emotional reward in lieu of creature comforts. Stew Leonard’s, Build-a-Bear Workshop, Umpqua Bank and a few others compete mainly on charm—fun at work, family feeling, respect for and from management—plus health care benefits, with few other tangible perks.
There’s also a discontinuity between companies where many people might work and those where few need apply. SAS actually did grow jobs last year, by a modest 2%. But the people they hire are for the most part already selected out of the general population by high skill levels. And many of the more applicant-accessible companies on the list had negative job growth, ranging from -2% to more than -20%. Across the board, from FedEx to Zappos, CarMax to Men’s Wearhouse, the job news for non-geniuses was not good.
So who grew? Biggest increases were at the Scooter Store (up 51%) and Smucker’s (up 44%). The “why” at Scooter Store seems obvious, given the aging population and the general decline in fitness. As for Smucker’s . . . well, sales have increased 58% since their acquisition of Folger’s in 2008, so effectively they bought a bunch of new jobs. And coffee has turned out to be a great space for expansion, since decreases in disposable income have driven coffee drinkers to brew at home. On the flip side, job growth at Starbucks was -27%.
More analysis, and some lessons from the list, in Part 2.
Vocus Report Maps the “Traditional Media” Landscape
March 5, 2010
Social media seems to dominate the conversation about corporate messaging these days—and every week brings a new story about the demise of traditional media. But it’s important not to oversimplify this equation. People still read newspapers (you can watch them do it at Starbucks or on the bus), listen to the radio in their cars, borrow books from the library, watch television daily, and flip through magazines at the doctor’s office. And businesses still have to use all these media formats strategically.
So 2010 State of the Media: An Analysis of the Changing Media Landscape by the Vocus Research Team is well worth a download. The report, which analyzes the status of conventional media and identifies developing trends, was discussed in a webinar recently—and here are some highlights I took away from the presentation:
The magazine sector will shrink, with some titles folding (especially in areas where there are close competitors, such as Self vs. Shape) and other titles publishing less frequently. There will be an increase in special editions on the print side, with digital distribution and on-demand content growing on the non-print side. New online magazines will continue to appear, especially in niche areas. Takeaway: Think beyond print when including magazines in PR strategy.
Newspapers are closing fast (especially weeklies) and launching infrequently. Staffs and coverage are shrinking. If there is good news in this sector, it’s not clear yet—but the trend is obviously toward more integration between paper and online delivery. Takeaway: Everyone is overworked at papers today, so maximize the chance of getting attention by targeting pitches carefully. Send exactly the right story angle to exactly the right person.
Cost-cutting in television may not be evident to the viewer, but it’s definitely going on. And the main casualty is news. There’s less coverage for soft news and in-depth stories, and in some areas talk shows are replacing newscasts. Staffers may have to manage online content as well as on-air reporting. Takeaway: Broaden pitches to go beyond the traditional newscast. Make the reporter’s job easier by offering extra content (fact and images) and high-quality b-roll for online use.
Radio has lost stations, jobs, revenue, and programming—but there is still a lot of strength in this sector. Although listening alternatives (satellite radio, MP3s, etc.) continue to increase, the majority of adults still get the majority of their audio from broadcast radio. Takeaway: Keep in mind that most radio stations now have websites and podcasts, so there’s a need for rich content. Think beyond sound bytes!
The webinar concludes with some good general advice: Remember that traditional media still matters, continue to maintain relationships, provide substantive content, and stick to the tried-and-true PR principles of accuracy, timeliness and relevance.
Vocus, by the way, is “a leading provider of on-demand software for public relations management,” offering a web-based software suite that not only facilitates media relations, news distribution and news monitoring, but also provides cool reporting functionality. They will actually reward you for taking a tour of the product—and it’s a fun trip, so why not?
(The technology magazine Radio News was started in 1919 by Hugo Gernsback, who became one of the most influential figures in science fiction publishing.)
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