Interactive Web Technologies Deliver Financial Message to Investors and Analysts

Business Case Study

Published: June 2011

Situation

The Microsoft Investor Relations (IR) team works with shareholders, investors, and analysts to minimize the gap between the intrinsic value and market value (or perception) of Microsoft. Communicating the company’s strategy, financial data, outlook, and performance is a critical driver of the market’s perception. The Investor Relations website is one tool that the IR team uses to facilitate this exchange of information in a highly scalable way. However, the site had become dated and did not utilize advances in website technology to deliver an interactive experience to its audiences.

Microsoft wanted a more engaging website to deliver its financial message. An important business goal was to help Microsoft be a leader in financial reporting and regulatory compliance by making financial information on the website transparent and easy to consume. The updated site needed to enable investors to get high-level summary information supported by contextual links and easy access to more detailed information by topic. For financial analysts, the site had to provide quick access to filings, reports, and event transcripts, and make it easier to sort through events and other materials for associating context to the numbers.

Solution

The IR team used Microsoft Silverlight 4.0 to revise the Investor Relations website. The site uses Silverlight to present interactive charts for revenue, operating income, and earnings per share. Users can also get more detailed data by pausing on different parts of the chart, and by selecting data ranges and/or other attributes to modify their view.

For financial statements, the site aggregates information from XBRL filings, earnings slides, webcasts, Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filings, and press releases, and it presents this information with summary information at the top and details below. Figure 1 shows related information pulled from the XBRL-tagged notes to financial statements.

Figure 1. Financial statement with XBRL content and details

Users can filter investor-relations events by event type, speaker, fiscal year, business segment, and other metadata. To make strategy-related content easily discoverable, event tags for strategy and business segment display relevant events on company and segment strategy pages. Users can get on-pause event previews with excerpts from transcripts and slides to help them avoid unnecessary clicks. They can quickly browse through event videos by using chapter titles and other visual cues.

The event viewer, built with Silverlight, allows users to glance through a table of contents for each event and directly jump to content or a topic of interest. Figure 2 shows the Past Events page with metadata text that offers more detail about a previewed event.

Figure 2. Events with preview and metadata

Event media and resources—including video, Microsoft PowerPoint® slides, and transcripts—are synchronized, and users can browse through all sources simultaneously with a single click. Figure 3 shows the interactive event player with synchronized video and PowerPoint slides on display.

Figure 3. Interactive event player

The website is built on the Microsoft.com Content Services Platform (CSP), a proprietary content management system that is based on Microsoft SharePoint® 2010 and Microsoft InfoPath® 2010. The CSP enables the IR team to easily update day-to-day information like announcements and upcoming events.

Benefits

The interactive web experience supports the Microsoft goal of effectively taking its message to investors and Wall Street. The event player with chapters enables users to discover information about key topics like the business case for the cloud, instead of keeping this information buried in transcripts or hour-long webcasts without topic cues. Event metadata tags enable events to be easily filtered and presented in managed views.

The XBRL financial statements with detailed information from XBRL-tagged footnotes enable Microsoft to take a leadership role in increasing transparency in financial reporting. The site can serve as an example for the SEC and for other companies on how XBRL can be used to make financial information more usable. The content management system simplifies the process of making everyday updates like announcements and upcoming events, enabling Microsoft to meet Regulation Fair Disclosure guidelines while minimizing website maintenance costs.

For More Information

For more information about Microsoft products or services, call the Microsoft Sales Information Center at (800) 426-9400. In Canada, call the Microsoft Canada Order Centre at (800) 933-4750. Outside the 50 United States and Canada, please contact your local Microsoft subsidiary. To access information via the World Wide Web, go to:

http://www.microsoft.com

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/itshowcase

http://www.microsoft.com/investor/default.aspx

© 2011 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

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