Infosys Technologies ranked top for online Press-friendliness; most fare disastrously

The website of Infosys Technologies has been ranked the most Press-friendly in India. The ranking was done at the end of a study which identified gaps in Indian corporate websites that do not allow for a productive interaction between companies and journalists.

The Newsability of Indian Corporate Websites, released by Newswatch on Thursday, ranked 100 websites of Indian companies based on the findings. Tata, Dabur India Limited, Dr Reddy's Laboratories Limited and Aditya Birla Group came next in the rankings.

The Newswatch study identified over 50 gaps in Indian corporate websites based on over 100 parameters that were drawn up after interactions about their usability with 25 journalists. The journalists came from business newspapers, business section of general newspapers, business magazines, business section of general interest magazines, and niche B2B magazines. All offered their time as volunteers.

"Indian corporate websites are woefully incomplete when it comes to providing various kinds of information and tools that are sought by journalists," said Subir Ghosh, founder-editor of Newswatch. "The objective of this study was not to rank corporate websites, but to identify gaps that when filled up would go a long way in making life easier for journalists."

Newswatch India (www.newswatch.in) is an online entity which documents and monitors trends and news pertaining to the news media and journalism profession, both in India and at an international level. Newswatch now focuses primarily on news content analyses. Its recent study Undermined, which looked at how the news media covered the Vedanta / Niyamgiri issue, had been widely appreciated.

The Newswatch study does not look at either the quality or volume of content of corporate websites. Ghosh remarked, "That was not our mandate. What we needed to find out was whether Indian corporates, which spend a considerable amount of money on their websites, are able to leverage those sites for media coverage. What we surprisingly found was that most companies had no clue as to how to go about it. Our study identifies over 50 elements that can help corporates make better use of their sites for media coverage."

Top-ranked Infosys Technologies scored 70 in the points tally on a scale of 100. Tata (59.09), Dabur India Limited (55.45), Dr Reddy’s Laboratories Ltd (50.00) and Aditya Birla Group (47.27) fared relatively well. But most others failed to reach a particular standard. Sixtythree corporate websites scored 25 or less. Twentyfive companies scored 10 or less. Nine scored zero.

If your company has not been ranked in this study, it makes no difference. You can still use the findings to see where your company website stands in terms of being journalist-friendly. You can subsequently make necessary modifications. The report includes a do-it-yourself evaluation sheet.

Any study of this kind can be looked at as priceless feedback from users, in this case from journalists. That is because the parameters for judging the sites have not been determined by the publisher, but have been drawn from experiences of journalists who use corporate websites for a number of reasons.

This report is useful for:

• All Senior Management executives who are not experts in web technology, corporate communications or public relations; but need to know what's going on with their organisation's website;
• All Corporate Communications professionals of a company responsible for dealing with the media;
• All Public Relations professionals who handle the media for corporate clients and advise them on various media-related issues;
• All IT professionals responsible for designing a corporate website (which ideally would include a Press section).

A journalist colleague with a New Delhi-based business magazine was, some time back, in urgent need for some information on a company he was writing about. He visited the company’s website, but it didn’t help. There were no contact details available on the site either, because of which he could not get in touch with the company. As a result he ended up with a sketchily-written article. Officials at company, for their part, came across the article and were naturally a bit displeased with it. One of them contacted the journalist concerned to speak his mind out, but had to beat a retreat. The reporter let the executive know, in no uncertain terms, what he thought about the website and, indeed how professionally useless it was for him.

This journalist and I happened to exchange notes on the subject, and during those discussions the idea for this study was born.

Objective: The idea had been born more out of exigency rather than any expediency. For there were other journalists too who spoke of similar issues. Most would fall back on corporate websites in case of an emergency for information, and quite often graphics, but would end up disgusted.

A survey needed to be done, gaps in corporate websites needed to be identified. And one would come up with rankings. But these rankings were not to be the main objective; those would only be used to test the guidelines one came up with. This survey identifies over 50 gaps in the Press sections of Indian corporate websites, through over 100 parameters. It is now up to companies to fill the gaps. They stand nothing to lose, and every bit of mileage to gain.

Methodology: The parameters were identified by the usage experiences of 25 journalists with varied backgrounds. The journalists came from business newspapers, business section of general newspapers, business magazines, business section of general interest magazines, and niche B2B magazines.

Hundred corporate websites were tested on basis of the parameters that were drawn up. The companies selected for the survey had little in common except that those were randomly drawn from various company rankings that are published by various Indian magazines and newspapers.

The Newsability of Indian Corporate Websites report is a tautly compiled document on how a corporate entity can beef up its website so as to maximise its press coverage. Some highlights:

• The ZIP file (available for download) also contains the Excel sheet used to rank the 100 Indian corporate websites.
• There is a do-it-yourself checklist in the actual report which you can use to evaluate your website.
• The report tells you what journalists want, and what they find as irritants.
• The document contains close to 80 screenshots from websites which serve as illustrations for what works and what does not.
• The study is based on user experiences of journalists.

• You can download the report from our secure store on Plimus, by following this link:
  https://www.plimus.com/jsp/buynow.jsp?contractId=2901248
• Alternatively, you can pay us through Paypal. We will send you an invoice with a payment link and relevant instructions. After the payment is done, we will email the document to you.
• You can also deposit the requisite amount directly into our bank account. The account details are available on specific request.

If you need clarifications, please email us at editor@newswatch.in. Please ensure that you email us from your official company ID.

1. Infosys Technologies Ltd
2. Tata
3. Dabur India Limited
4. Dr Reddy's Laboratories Ltd
5. Aditya Birla Group
6. Raymond India
7. NIIT Limited
8. Biocon
9. Mahindra
10. Wipro Technologies
11. Thermax Limited
12. GlaxoSmithKline Pharmaceuticals Ltd
13. Ranbaxy
14. HDFC Bank
15. Essar Group
16. Wockhardt
17. Hindustan Unilever Limited
18. Jet Airways
19. ABB
20. GAIL
21. Shoppers Stop
22. Hindustan Construction Company
23. Canon India
24. Godrej
25. Sterlite Industries (I) Ltd
26. Hyundai Motor Company
27. Larsen & Toubro
28. DLF
29. Ashok Leyland
30. Havells
31. ITC
32. Jindal Steel and Power
33. Himalaya Herbal Healthcare
34. Religare Enterprises Limited
35. Max India
36. Zee Entertainment Enterprises Limited
37. Vodafone
38. Cadbury India Limited
39. Videocon Industries Ltd
40. Kotak
41. Philips India
42. Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd
43. Maruti Suzuki India Limited
44. Bajaj Auto
45. AC Nielsen
46. Bharti Enterprises
47. Royal Sundaram
48. Whirlpool India
49. Unitech Limited
50. TVS Motor Company
51. Samsung India
52. Air India
53. Hindware
54. Hero Honda Motors Ltd
55. Sun Pharmaceutical Industries Limited
56. Oberoi Hotels & Resorts
57. NTPC Ltd
58. Asahi India
59. MakeMyTrip Limited
60. Eveready Industries
61. Ambuja Cements Ltd
62. Pidilite Industries Limited
63. Indian Oil Corporation
64. Kingfisher Airlines
65. Sahara India Pariwar
66. Reliance Industries Limited
67. Lewis Berger Paints
68. Toyota India
69. Marico
70. Hindustan Copper Limited
71. Apollo Hospitals
72. ICICI Bank
73. Eureka Forbes
74. Life Insurance Corporation of India
75. Steel Authority of India Ltd
76. Adani Group
77. Godfrey Phillips India Ltd
78. Housing Development & Infrastructure Ltd
79. HCL Infosystems Ltd
80. Reckitt Benckiser
81. Bombay Dyeing
82. Nestle India
83. GMR Group
84. Future Group
85. Blue Dart
86. Jaypee Group
87. Usha Martin
88. Vishal Retail Limited
89. Camlin Limited
90. IDBI Bank Ltd
91. Reliance ADAG
92. DCM Shriram
93. Balmer Lawrie & Co Ltd
94. MRF
95. Goodricke
96. Alembic Limited
97. Kirloskar Brothers Limited
98. Arvind Limited
99. Colgate-Palmolive (India)
100. P&G Hygiene and Health Care Limited