By Patrick Avenell

Australian retailers have a lot of work to do to improve their communication with stakeholders, according to a report into the corporate newsrooms of Australian publicly listed retailers.

Unlike the banking, airline and mining sectors, which scored well overall in this report by Comnicate, the retail industry was considered very poor at communicating corporate messages to investors, potential investors, business partners and customers.

“The retail sector was the hardest group to assess and compare,” reads the report.

“Companies in this sector focus their communication strongly towards the retail consumers that buy from them, and place very little focus on their other stakeholders.”

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Amongst Australian retailers, only department store Myer received any praise.

“It was encouraging to see that Myer (68 points) was not far behind leading US retailer Wal-Mart (75). It should be noted that while Wal-Mart is a benchmark for retailing in an overall business sense, the company’s corporate newsroom is not extraordinary, and we managed to identify other major US retailers that scored above 95, and which we would recommend as ideal benchmarks.

“On average, the Australian retailers have a lot of work to undertake in order to leverage the benefits of news publishing and social media communication.”

Comnicate’s scores (out of 100) for Retail corporate newsrooms

68 Myer
52 Wesfarmers
45 Woolworths
43 Harvey Norman
39 JB Hi-Fi
38 David Jones

Comnicate’s overall Top 10 corporate newsrooms

91 Rio Tinto
82 AMP
82 Telstra
76 ANZ Bank
75 Woodside Petroleum
74 Origin Energy
73 Treasury Wines
72 Commonwealth Bank
70 Qantas
70 Iluka Resources

Here is how the company behind this report, Comnicate, describes itself:

"We advise, design, consult and build best-practice media solutions for business. We help companies harness the internet and make their marketing communications more efficient, effective, and measurable."