Good IR shackled by IT

It’s sadly amusing how the largest companies, with the largest shareholder bases, often have the poorest Investor Relations websites. Now we love and appreciate IT experts (or whatever you call the information technology folks at your company), and zu has many of them keeping our own technology running up in Saskatoon. But when one thinks of the nimbleness an IRO must exhibit in dealing with issues, or in taking advantage of the rapidly improving means of displaying website content, is IT really the partner you should be required to work through?

Granted, the larger and more multi-purposed the website, the greater the need for IT to control the rate of change of the site. And the greater the controls and project management needed to ensure website changes don’t endanger the integrity of the greater site. We understand their need to move cautiously, resist change and experimentation, and slow the path of new technologies. (Such as corporate adoption of browsers newer then IE6, access to social media sites, etc.)

We’ve found IROs who actually need our help in dealing with/working with their own IT department to make substantive changes to their sites, such as improving information architecture and the addition of usability enhancements. We are happy to do this – to be guides and project managers for the IROs with their own information services group. And after gaining the trust of the technology folks, we are actually appreciated in helping them deliver a project on time. It is reasonable to expect that a temporary boost in web programming capability is what a project needs to actually be accomplished, as corporate IT departments are typically overbooked with projects at any point in time.

Of course, the best strategy is that the IR website be removed from the enterprise solution (while maintaining the online brand) so that Investor Relations can have much closer and immediate control of their website. Just because the website is “programming-oriented” does not mean it should be controlled by IT. The IR website is a communication project, like the annual report. Imagine if IT controlled the means of producing that.

In most cases, and especially where the website has many purposes beyond the Investor Relations function, IR websites would be far better if IT was out of the loop.