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.

Smiths Group Website

General Layout, Look And Feel

There is an immediate difference between the layout of the two companies’ websites.  Rexam is big and bold with a certain artistic flair to it and a swish to divide up the page into different portions.

Smiths Group, on the other hand, is a lot more straightforward in its presentation, preferring a standard typeface displayed in square boxes and columns.

This isn’t an artistic critique, it’s a simple observation that the way the Rexam website is presented engages and draws the surfer in, while the Smiths Group one communicates a much drier atmosphere.

This being said, both use accepted website presentation within their respective Corporate Responsibility sections.  Rexam abandons its swish for a single column of text (though not immediately), while Smiths Group simply continues using the same layout.

A Good Breadth of CSR Content

Both Smiths Group and Rexam have some good points about their websites which other companies would do well to pay attention to.  Corporate Responsibility is on the homepage of both, and both cover the basic ground of community, workforce and environment.

Both also have a respectable number of documents available for download, including precursor CSR reports dating back to 2002 and various other policies and reports.

While these show a good breadth of understanding of CSR, it is in the level of detail that a gap opens up between the two.

For example, Rexam publishes the contact details of their Director of Corporate Responsibility and has a handy little FAQ and Glossary, which gets quite in depth in places.

On the other hand, Smiths Group repeats its Code of Business Ethics in both the Corporate Responsibility and Corporate Governance sections.  This is a good sign that it understands CSR is more than just an adjunct, but it’s a shame that they’ve missed a trick.

Rexam Website

A Good Story Missed In Its Telling

Smiths Group certainly has some valuable and useful sustainability stories to tell.  Their online Corporate Responsibility Report for 2009 is well laid out and contains some useful facts and figures for analysts to get their teeth into.

Rexam, on the other hand, only produce PDF reports, not interactive versions, and have missed a few years making it difficult to build up a consistent picture.

This is the big trick so many businesses still miss, including both Smiths Group and Rexam.

Online websites should no longer be about the virtual shop window of static HTML.  They should be media rich giving stakeholders a precise, interactive and up to date (though not necessarily immediate) insight into the business’ concerns.  This includes but is not limited to sustainability content.

However, the mechanism to make this happen does fall within the sustainability agenda: transparency.  This could well be the biggest challenge for 21st century business, making those who are genuinely open and honest the winners, warts and all.

^{Picture Credit: I dream of steam by mugley from flickr under Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike License.}

• FTSE100 Website Reviews
• Truffling out a Diamond in Better Cotton
• Clearing Your Clutter
• CSR Improves Your Stock Value — Official!
• Lundquist’s Report on CSR Websites | Not Good News For Sustainable Business

 Corporate Eye

School.  Everyone has their own memories of school, how well they did or didn’t do, and why.

I’ve recently been talking to my eldest about school.  He’s at the end of primary school (year 6) and I was attempting to explain how important it is to take full advantage of your years in school for your future life and prospects.

The chat was successful and we now recognise that a lot of effort is required from both of us over many years before he matures into the job-wielding adult of our dreams and aspirations.

All of which sprung to mind as I looked over a list of the 859 companies kicked out of the United Nations Global Compact (UNGC) at the start of this month: a lot more time and effort is required, by all parties concerned.

United Nations Global Compact – A Potted History

The UNGC was formed in 2000 by the United Nations in order to promote a range of environmental and ethical business practices.  The cornerstone is Ten Principles which a company’s CEO has to personally sign up to in order for a company to be accepted into the scheme.

In theory, each subsequent year the company should then submit a Communication on Progress (COP) detailing what they’ve done to implement these principles.

In practice, what happened is that many companies signed up and happily plastered the good name of the United Nations all over their literature, but never submitted a COP.  The term “bluewashing” was coined to describe this.

In 2004, a set of integrity measures were introduced, which included the threat of delisting for failure to provide a COP.  In 2008, a staggering eight years after the UNGC was established, the first companies were kicked out.

Since then nearly 2,000 companies have been delisted from the UNGC, of which nearly half were announced this year, and a similar amount are classed as “inactive” (meaning they are under threat of being kicked out).  To put this into context, 127 new joiners have been announced this year and the total number of active pariticipants is 5,300.

Should You Report Bad News?

It’s easy to take pot shots at the UNGC: after all, it’s not the scheme which is behaving badly but the participants.  So when the list of 859 was announced I thought I’d give it a quick skim and see what some of the companies had to say about it.

Looking in detail at 12 of the 859 companies (those with greatest name recognition for me) the first thing which struck me was that not one of the companies had reported the delisting on their website.

This isn’t a shocking surprise.  The idea of publicity demands that companies only announce good news unless forced otherwise.  Transparency, on the other hand, demands something else and if a company is delisted surely there is a good, sensible reason for it to no longer engage with the United Nations?

In this era of reputation management, with BAE Systems seeming to escape corruption charges and Toyota having to recall at least 8 million cars, a small, pro-active statement may be worth a company’s while.

The Parent and Child Relationship

Then it struck me that over half of these companies were subsidiaries of larger multinational concerns.

Most of these have parent companies who are members of the UNGC and if the group CEO has signed the Ten Principles it follows that this will cascade down throughout the organisation.

Delisted examples of this include Shell Nigeria, GlaxoSmithKline Ukraine and Royal and Sun Alliance Mexico.  It’s worth noting however that many other subsidiaries remain engaged with the UNGC alongside their parent, and I remain puzzled by Tata which both had some of its subsidiaries delisted in this wave, and yet has others remaining actively engaged.

However in the 12 companies I was looking at I did come across one subsidiary whose parent company is not a member of the UNGC: Singer Bangladesh.

Does It Matter If The Parent Doesn’t Care?

This is worrisome for two reasons.  Firstly, because it implies that the subsidiary is more concerned about sustainability than the parent, and secondly because it implies that that concern was not supported by the parent.

The issue in this case may be the form of ownership.  Singer Bangladesh is owned by Singer Corporation, which was bought in 2004 by Kohlberg & Company, an American Private Equity company, and merged into SVP Worldwide.

Of all of these, only Singer Bangladesh has a CSR section on their website, the irony of which has not escaped me.

I do not know how many other subsidiaries there are in the list, nor how many of the companies are privately owned in such a manner.

Nor do I know whether Singer Corporation, SVP or Kohlberg & Company have any kind of corporate responsibility or sustainability policy: certainly none is published on their websites.

However, had a small news article been released on any of their websites, lamenting the loss of the UNGC listing and pointing to Singer Bangladesh’s admirable work among its own community, then perhaps … perhaps .. I would not be quite as cynical.

Parents And Children Need To Grow Up

10 years after the UNGC was launched, it is finally using its teeth and, to quote one CSR professional I know, “showing a little backbone”.  It’s starting to grow up.

However, the rest of the business world needs to grow up with it.  The UNGC is not the most onerous scheme to be part of and never deserved the abuse it got when it was first established.

A recent study by the Boston College Centre for Corporate Citizenship found that 41% of companies monitor the strategy of their CSR programmes, but only 25% measure the social impact of those programmes.

Social responsibility and sustainability is barely out of primary school.  Adolescence has yet to kick in.  We have a long time and a lot of effort to go before sustainable business reaches maturity.

^{The twelve organisations examined for this article are GSK Ukraine, Philips Pakistan, RSA Mexico, Singer Bangladesh, Tata Autocomp, Tata Industrials, Tetra Pak Ukraine, Shell Nigeria, Unilever Ghana, Unilever Mozambique, Unilever South East Africa.}

^{Picture Credit: Long way to go by krishnan_sriram14 fom flickr under Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike License.}

• The United Nations Global Compact Gets Tough
• Indicators for Oil & Gas CSR Websites
• Oil Companies Among The Best | FTSE 100 Website Reviews
• Sustainability Reporting in the EU
• Shell and Oracle : Sustainability’s Ashoka Chakra

 Corporate Eye

Amlin is a world class insurance company. The first place I visited, like most, was the About Us section–

The design is minimalist but the content is robust. The left navigation contains most of what you might want from an About Us section. The right navigation gives you more content.

Access an an HTML version of the Annual Report. Noteworthy is their upfront statement that they delivered robust performance despite the economic crisis. Right to the point, no hype, compelling, you want to learn more about this company.

All stakeholders will find useful information. This is an excellent example of knowledge management and transparency.

Amlin, like other companies, displays its strategy. But unlike other companies, it goes into substantive detail. Also, unlike other companies it displays its performance against its strategic goals–

This display is only for Amlin’s first goal, there are more Key Performance Indicators. Not surprising that they won PriceWaterhouseCooper’s Building Public Trust Award “For Telling It How It Is” in the FTSE 250 award in 2008.

“Excellent reporting from many different perspectives. All narrative disclosures are underpinned by clear strategic information linked to key performance indicators, with good detail on management of resources and relationships. Comprehensive forward-looking information, including market trends and targets. This is a very complex business, but the overview and use of colour-coding make its annual report easy for anyone to navigate and understand. Well done!”

I could not find this award on Amlin’s website. Suggestion to Amlin — post this award and apply for others.

I further investigated the website to find out more about what makes this company tick. I only had to click on the PEOPLE navigation that appears on the topline navigation.

You must visit View Staff Case Studies and click on the names below Meet Our Staff and view an hourly view of a day in the life of the staff member. Also View Survey Results to view the results of staff surveys. This is the first time I have seen this displayed on a corporate website.

Well done indeed Amlin Plc.

• About Novozymes “About Us”
• What Makes for Effective Investor Relations Sites? Part 23: More on Strategy
• What Makes for Effective Investor Relations Sites? Part 18: What’s Your Strategy?
• ANZ Bank, the Spirit and the Letter
• SKF Little Glitz, Lots of Content

 Corporate Eye

Corporate media is a popular and busy animal. Never a dull moment, there is always something to report, something to analyze,  good news to share and rumors to dispel.  And since there is always something to be shared at all times, I curiously went to three of the major U.S. television network sites to see how they fare in reporting the “media” part of media relations to the public and to the online world. Here’s what I found:

CBS

Grade: B-

The main CBS home page for media relations was very easy to find. Now initially, I almost became frustrated because I couldn’t find the link to get to the media information, but after more scanning I located it. I found out too that the reason that I could not readily find the link was because it was buried within more links. Not a problem though, and actually quite alright. When I clicked on the links within the media section, I immediately saw that there were more links within each sub-section of the media’s section. I like the way that they organized the sub-folders and how it guides you to where you need to be exactly.

The CBS site gives a journalist everything he needs to make a story. Good links, easy-to-navigate pages and clear directions on how to find everything.

NBC

Grade: B-

The site at NBC was a little more difficult to navigate, as things weren’t quite readily accessible as you would imagine. Although I’m sure it must be there somewhere, I simply cannot find the dedicated media section for the network. I actually sent an email to the website developers department to see if they can give me some guidance on locating the information. I’m sure someone will contact me right away, since I’m assured that the media relations section has to be buried away somewhere.

Now, what I did like about the NBC site though was the value of information that is on the site. The links that were seemingly connected to media (or news) were full of information, just enough to get a good story. But, you have to work for it. Hard.

ABC

Grade: A

The ABC site has links and information that pointed directly to their media relations sections. There was (and is) a press release and dedicated media section that provided a wealth of information and articles for reporting and researching. Again, good information and easy to find for journalists and bloggers.

All three of the networks offered some good and some not-so-good elements that make their media relations efforts workable. How do your media relations links look for your corporation? Are they easy to find? Will guests become frustrated when they visit? How can you improve your site?

• NBC, Tim Russert and Media Relations
• Coca-Cola Finds Success With Its Social Media Project
• Corporate Social Media Relations Challenges
• Tracking Your Site’s Visitors
• New Marketing vs. Old Marketing: Using the Same Message

 Corporate Eye

I found a company that won a Transparency Award in Singapore — Keppel Land. Yet the company states a humble view –

Good governance – beyond winning awards

Winning awards and accolades from the investment community for Keppel’s outstanding corporate practices are feel-good boosters for Keppelites. 

Beyond that, these awards serve duly as an important indication that Keppel is moving forward the right track in its admirable goal to achieve a rooted culture of good corporate governance. 

 
While the “look and feel” of the site is not up to world standards, the Corporate Governance content is comprehensive and is a global model of Transparency.

Keppel not only shows its Strategic Direction and objectives, it displays actions it has taken to execute its strategy. This is remarkable, since many companies do not display the details of their strategy and the few that do, don’t go into the details as does Keppel. There may be a risk that the company is showing the “corporate jewels”, but the risk is offset by the information value for existing and potential investors.

Keppel exhibits its extensive Corporate Governance system starting with this page

and continues for 10 pages of content about Board membership, attendance, compensation, performance and more. The navigation bar options on the left expand to other Governance topics that provide information for just about any item concerning Governance.

The only flaw that I see is a problem with website navigation. Keppel’s good Corporate Governance content isn’t available from the main site navigation, but is “hidden” in the main menu under “annual Reports” (see 2007); it should be brought out and highlighted.

Humbleness is a laudable virtue, but Keppel has a compelling Corporate Governance story and they should flaunt it.

• Need to keep up with regulatory changes?
• TNT Corporate Governance
• Bravo — BrasilTelcom Corporate Governance
• Board Compensation On Websites
• Corporate Governance Goes Multimedia

 Corporate Eye