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November 11, 2016
The research has been conducted for the 20th time which is based on surveys sent to around 500 analysts, investors, business journalists and jobseekers in Europe. Based on their responses more than 800 companies in Europe have been ranked on how they communicate in their digital channels.
The companies are ranked on 50 criteria, split into sections such as company information (“About us”), press, investor relations, CSR and careers.
When comparing the 20 largest companies in each country, Sweden achieves second place for the third year running. The Swedish companies are particularly strong in Financial reporting where access to the latest annual report and interim report is considered as very important by 89% of the capital market – and something that the Swedish companies are consistent at fulfilling.
As well as within Governance information, about the board and management of the company, along with insider and remuneration information that is requested.
Information about the company is sought after by both the capital market and jobseekers. In addition to getting information about the company's business, they want to know where in the world the company has operations. Information about the geographical spread is something that Swedish companies can improve on.
Information on market share is also low and 42% avoid to mention their competitors.
This year's results for the Swedish companies are significantly better than last year, but still with a low average of 48% target achievement.
The press section is largely about the archives of press releases and images. In addition to the content, it is important to be able to easily navigate and sort among previous press releases.
Information about financial goals and achievements has been one of the most requested pieces of information during Webranking’s nearly 20-year history. Despite this, target fulfilment only reaches 42% on average. More companies present their financial goals but lack information about how they have met or will meet them.
Despite CSR information becoming more important both to companies and people in general, few companies give this section enough attention. In our survey to those responsible for the website that was performed earlier this year, Sustainability was the second most prioritized section for this year, which doesn’t show in the results. The average score is 32%, which is considered to be very low. Most requested is information about where and how much tax companies pay. Only SEB and Stora Enso provides this information this year.
The careers section on a corporate website is often the most visited, due to that the target group consists of more people. Considering the difficulty many companies have in attracting talent and that jobseekers name the corporate website as one of the most important channels, the results in this section should be much better than the current 33%. Swedish companies are good in presenting information about competence development, what it is like to work at the company and diversity and equality information.
26% of companies miss out on meeting mobile visitors
The number of companies that provide a responsive corporate website to meet their mobile visitors from mobile devices have increased from 33% two years ago to 74% today. This is a big improvement but companies still need to do more to meet their mobile visitors.
This year’s top 3 list is completely different from last year – winner is confection manufacturer Cloetta with 81 points.
Cloetta meets most of the demands from the capital market and is the best performing company in Governance, Press and Share information. They manage to provide information that many other companies don’t and show an openness and transparency by choosing to link their board members and management team to their LinkedIn profiles.
"We are very happy about the recognition. The digital communication is one of the corner stones of our corporate communications. This award is a receipt on our methodical work to improve our commination has paid off. It also shows that a midsized listed company can be best in digital corporate communications”, says Jacob Broberg, SVP Communications & Investor Relations at Cloetta.
First runner up is this year’s climber – the Swedish bank SEB – who increased their score with 19 points since last year – a great improvement.
SEB has improved their performance in all but one of Webranking’s sections. They score well in all sections, and their improvement in the IR section is impressive.
Second runner up is SCA, the global hygiene and forest products company. SCA has been among the top performers in Sweden for many years, and are now back in the top 3 list.
SCA’s website has been one of the best performing websites for many years. One of the reasons for their comeback among the top 3 companies this year is their improvements in the CSR section.
| Rank | Company | Score | |
| 1 | Cloetta | 81,0 | |
| 2 | SEB | 78,9 | |
| 3 | SCA | 77,7 | |
| 4 | Skanska | 75,5 | |
| 5 | Stora Enso | 74,5 | |
| 6 | Swedish Match | 74,0 | |
| 7 | Husqvarna | 73,8 | |
| 8 | SSAB | 72,6 | |
| 9 | ICA Gruppen | 72,0 | |
| 10 | BillerudKorsnäs | 71,5 |
The results for the 500 largest companies in Europe will be published in the beginning of next year.
There are 10 new companies on the list of Sweden’s 100 largest companies this year – Attendo, Bravida, Collector, Dometic Group, Fingerprint Cards, Hoist Finance, Pandox, Resurs Holding, Scandic Hotels Group and Vitrolife. The average score for these are 40.5, which is slightly below the total average for the Swedish companies.
Best of the newcomers is Fingerprint Cards with 56 points on 28th place, followed by Scandic Hotels Group on 34th place with 52,7 points.
For more information please contact Helena Wennergren, helena.wennergren@comprend.com.
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Webranking is Europe's leading survey of corporate websites and the only global ranking that is based on stakeholder demands. By identifying what the corporate audiences expect, we can help companies identify how to improve their corporate website content to better meet stakeholder needs.