KPN: Transparent and detailed about its strategy

Company: KPNTrend: The VisionSubject: Investor Relations

What do you see?

KPN, a Dutch communications and ICT services provider, recently formulated its strategic plans for the period 2008 – 2010, called ‘back to growth’. The ‘about us’ section of the website contains a very extensive section on the new company strategy, overall as well as per division. KPN uses a fixed format to communicate the information:

Goals (what?)
Strategic path (how?)
Impact on EBITDA growth (impact)

For visitors interested in learning more, a download of the management team’s strategy update presentation is available.

Why is it effective?

In general, companies have close ties with professional financial stakeholders (i.e. analysts and institutional investors) since they encounter them regularly during road shows and other meetings. Most private investors, on the other hand, will meet KPN once a year for the Annual General Meeting. The fact that KPN discloses its strategy information on its website so extensively is of great value to the private investor community in particular. They now have easy access to valuable information about KPN’s future plans.

What’s next?

Communicating strategy is often a delicate issue for companies. Stakeholders, on the other hand, consider strategy information very important. The most transparent companies, like KPN, communicate their strategy and provide quantitative targets. In the nearby future, we anticipate that these companies will start communicating about the realization of their strategy and targets on a regular basis by providing both quantitative (figures) and qualitative information (explanation updates regarding their targets and accomplishments).

KPN is preparing for growth, let’s hope the level of online transparency will continue to grow as well.