Measuring and Understanding the Use of Online Corporate Investor

Relations Information

Andrew Lymer

Nick Rowbottom

Amir Allam

Project Aims and Objectives•To develop, test and evidence a methodology to support understanding of the usage of online corporate investor relations information.

•Explore and report on an examination of our dataset of large UK corporations to identify aggregate patterns of usage including:

•usage of each main areas of investor relations websites• user profiles based on geographical location, timing of access etc• usage based on industry sector• changes in usage over time• etc…

Collecting web logsCollecting web logs

Internet

1. Request made

3. File sent

2. Log of request

Internet

1. Request made

2. Cookie check ?

4. Log of request

5. File sent

3. Cookie reply ?

Collecting web logsCollecting web logs

Data Extraction Process

LogFiles

Run Log

Analyser Software

Number of Page Views

and Visits

Annual Reports,Contents, and

URLs

Build

Site Map

Match

Usage of

Annual Report

Contents

Sample Results

0

50

100

150

200

250

300

No

rmal

ized

pag

e vi

ews

Benchmarking Investor Relations Website Usage

Level of Website Usage

Time

Det

ails

and

con

tent

Low

Med.

High

Monthly / QuarterlyGeneral

IR & AR *

IR & AR

Contents•IR = Investor Relations

•AR = Annual Reports

The benchmark considers 3 dimensions

Timetable and ProgressActivity Duration Date Prog.Prog.

Completion of all preparation and design work 2 May 03

Commencement of fieldwork or material/information/data collection phase of study

2 May 03

Completion of fieldwork or collection phase of study 9 Dec. 03

Commencement of analysis phase of study (substantive phase where research facilities are involved)

3 June 03

Completion of analysis phase of study 12 April 04

Commencement of writing up of the research 9 Dec. 03

Completion of preparation of any new datasets for archiving

15 June 04

Completion of writing up 15 June 04

Done In Progress

Partners