The Oscars of online communications have been awarded. The Hera website placed second, preceded only by Snam. The award is based on a national study of the websites of 70 companies conducted by Lundquist and Comprend
The Hera Group has earned a place on the podium at Webranking 2016, the Oscars of web communications. The multiutility company was awarded the "silver medal" on 30 November at the Corriere della Sera headquarters in Milan.
The award is based on the research conducted by Lundquist and the Swedish Comprend, digital communications experts. Every year, they screen the websites of the largest Italian companies listed on the stock exchange and their respective web communications strategies in order to draw up a national ranking, which this year included 70 companies.
Hera finished in second place in this 15th edition of the report, with a score of 91.8/100, improving by a good two positions since last year and coming in ahead of large companies like Eni, which placed third. Snam was classified in first place. In addition, Hera was first in the utilities sector.
The multiutility company's strengths included its online publication of the Sustainability Report - a report featuring non-financial information which is prepared by just half of the companies observed. Hera, however, has prepared this report for its stakeholders since 2002 and has made it available online since 2006.
Lundquist also surveyed the history of the best companies on the web in Italy by analysing the Webranking results from 2011 to date. In this hall of fame encompassing 15 years of rankings, Hera came in third, just after Eni and Telecom.
The Webranking study is also a kind of stress test on company transparency: it assesses their digital communications based on the needs of stakeholders, who seek out not only interesting content, but also simple forms of online navigation. According to the report accompanying the study, only slightly more than one company out of three passes the test, and this year the trend observed by Lundquist is that what counts is the commitment to transparency, not big budgets. Indeed, the best results were achieved precisely by midcaps like Hera, medium-sized companies that have a strong desire to improve and stand out in the market.