Firms fail to capitalise on internet

Many leading UK and US companies risk losing business because of their failure to communicate effectively via the internet, according to a survey.

Most responsive FTSE firms

National Power (4mins)

Sema Group (8mins)

Scottish & Newcastle (9mins)

Woolwich (10mins)

The study into the use of the web by the FTSE 100 and the top 100 US Fortune companies was conducted by international technology marketing communications consultancy Rainier.

It concluded that more than 40% of leading UK and US public companies were failing to use the web as a direct communication medium with customers, investors and other target audiences.

It said some were not even delivering on basic promises made on their sites to customers and investors.

Rainier said the results indicated a need for large firms to ensure that their web response capabilities were at the very least as effective as telephoning, faxing or writing to their national or international headquarters.

No response

In the UK, only 71 of the FTSE 100 companies could be contacted by e-mail via their websites and of these more than 20%, including National Grid, P&O and Telewest, failed to respond to multiple requests for basic investor information after three months.

(Some) sites are little more than corporate wallpaper

Stephen Waddington, Rainier managing director in London

Twenty nine FTSE 100 companies, including Bass, Marks & Spencer and Thames Water, could not be reached by e-mail or did not have a website.

In the US, 77 of the Fortune 100 companies could be contacted by e-mail and of these a third, including American Express, Motorola and Walt Disney, failed to respond to a request for basic investor information after a wait of three months.

Twenty three Fortune 100 companies, including GTE, Hewlett-Packard and Intel, could not be reached by e-mail via their website.

The study found that UK companies were marginally better than their US counterparts in terms of speed, with 20 FTSE 100 companies responding within two hours, compared with only three from Fortune 100 companies.

Shocking

"However you choose to cut the data, this situation is a shock and quite appalling," said Stephen Waddington, Rainier managing director in London.

Most responsive US firms

UPS (5mins)

Home Depot (34mins)

USX (83mins)

Mobil (128mins)

"You would think that by now the world's largest companies would have developed an effective internet communication strategy.

"All too often companies focus on the content and look and feel of a site without considering its integration with existing customer contact systems.

"The result is that two in every five of the Fortune 100 and FTSE 100 websites are little more than corporate wallpaper," he added.

Ironically, amongst the slow responders and non-responders were some of the world's biggest names in communication.

Colt Telecom took 27 days to respond and Dell computers took 23 days. Energis, Telewest, IBM and Motorola failed to respond at all.

No improvement

A similar study was carried out in 1999 on FTSE 100 companies.

Rainier said that since then the standard of web communication had shown little improvement. In fact, the situation had got worse in many cases.

The number of FTSE sites with general contact details has improved.

Last year, six sites had no contact information at all compared to just two this year. On the downside the number of sites without online contact methods has risen from 16 last year to 23 this year.

This year's study was conducted over 100 days between 4 March and 1 July 2000.

Companies were contacted at the beginning of March, with a follow-up attempt made two weeks later if there was no response.