It’s a fantastic world of challenges and opportunities. Just as soon as most of us realized that the internet would open up a bright new global village of free-living communication we were beginning to scratch our heads about how we might find the resources to establish a web site to allow us to join the party. And what should we put on that site? And how should we keep it up-to-date?
Today most investor relations professionals have moved beyond the initial stages of internet fumbling but the challenges have certainly not gone away. In fact, as soon as you get to grips with one area (say, the relatively minor problem of what to put on the site) an ocean of other issues opens up before you.
If you haven’t already started thinking about the big picture IR implications of the internet we’re telling you now that you should be. It’s a scary picture for some of you out there. Maybe not this year, maybe not next, but sometime soon the internet is going to really change the way IR is conducted.
Some may scoff at this and suggest that much of that change has already taken place… ‘What about the web casts of our analyst meetings, eh? What about the interactive Q&As from our chief executive? Is that not change?’…Well, yes, it may be but we reiterate that you haven’t seen anything yet.
The internet may well have changed the world of IR quite substantially over the past few years but, as yet, it hasn’t really changed the fundamentals of the business of investor relations. This month’s cover story, Cutting out the middle, suggests that we may well see some serious changes in the relatively near future. We’re talking about the greater potential for companies to directly access their investors; the greater potential for intermediaries of all sorts to be left out of the equation; the resurgent power of the retail investor; the changing structure of the investment world, and a whole lot more.
Those of our readers from the IR agency side of the fence who have not as yet thought about what this might mean for their businesses had better get their thinking caps on. And fast. The same goes for in-house IR officers looking at new ways to get their messages across. Take a step back and think what the internet might, and we stress might, mean for the future of the sell-side. Or the venue-booker.
For the moment, it remains a world of ifs and buts. However, those who take time out now to think about their future IR strategy and what it might all mean will help themselves stay one step ahead of the game. That’s for certain. No ifs, no buts.
