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Accenture analyzed more than 35,000 Web pages from 35 European banks and insurers, revealing an alarming “governance gap” in adherence to fundamental security principles and technical standards.
In recent years, financial services providers have raced to build a more engaging online presence, but at what cost? A survey of European bank and insurer websites reveals serious governance shortcomings and concerns over security, compliance, standards and processes.
Even a seemingly innocuous issue, such as duplicated content, can have far-reaching consequences for an organization’s online business, including slower page loading; lower quality scores from search engines; errors in measuring page hits and downloads; and lower productivity and return on investment.
In this report, we reveal the results of the Accenture Digital Diagnostic Scan 2011 and recommend urgent action to improve online governance.
Read more Accenture Banking Research and Insights.
Between January and September 2011, Accenture Digital Diagnostics (ADD) used proprietary online performance software to analyze 35,000 publicly accessible Web pages on 35 European banking and insurance websites.
Our evaluation covered:
The results were alarming and revealed a clear “online governance gap” among European banks and insurers. In the race to acquire, serve and retain customers, these financial services providers have focused on front-end functionality at the expense of technical standards and security.
Accenture’s cross-company comparison of 35 websites in the banking and insurance industries revealed no clear leaders in online governance. Nonetheless, the difference between the highest and lowest scores for most criteria was consistently high—often 100 percent.
Specifically, we found that:
Insurance companies outperformed banks overall—but not significantly. Although banks had more broken links and redundant content, they scored higher on data protection.
As digital media grows in pervasiveness, speed and complexity, online governance will become both more challenging and more important. Organizations must take steps now to apply rigorous and holistic governance measures across all of their online activities.
Accenture Digital Diagnostics can help organizations measure their governance gaps and identify ways to improve online performance. Web pages are analyzed for site quality, data quality and compliance to produce management reports that zero in on the areas requiring attention. Repeated regularly, this continuous cycle of scanning, analyzing, diagnosing and fixing can help keep governance gaps in check.
March 28, 2012