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A recent survey finds Australian directors rate Company Director as a major communication tool - and have given the AICD monthly journal a high satisfaction rating.

Apart from the UK-based Economist, Company Director had a better satisfaction rating than BRW, The Bulletin, Time or other professional journals. The telephone survey of 400 directors in Australia and New Zealand was conducted over March and April by Taylor Nelson Sofres. It was aimed at determining the level of satisfaction with Company Director, whether meeting director needs, its positioning in relation to other journals, its strengths, the level of readership and satisfaction with layout and presentation.

The survey was conducted among directors in the services, finance and insurance, manufacturing, public sector and e-business industries. Directors were from companies with up to 20 employees to more than 100 and their role included director, chairman, partner, managing director, executive director, CEO, CFO and other. The survey found that 98 percent regularly read Company Director, rating it as highly professional and have given it a high satisfaction approval, particularly among female directors.

The survey also measured the level of advertising content and its acceptability among directors and asked directors if they would like to see Company Director made available to non-members of the AICD (92 percent said yes).

An interesting result from the survey was the high acceptance Company Director had among New Zealand directors who had only just received two issues of the journal as part of a joint publishing deal, yet gave it a higher satisfaction rating than the local business magazine National Business Review.

Key findings: Particular strengths of Company Director include:

• focus on director issues (41 percent spontaneous mention)

• commentary from respected people (86 percent)

• abreast of important issues (86 percent)

• strong business focus (81 percent)

• high delivery issues include corporate governance, corporate law reform, tax reform

• Law Reporter and Early Warner particularly valued, as well as cover stories and feature articles.

Opportunities for improvement include:

• more stories on global perspectives and trends

• more stories on the future and emerging markets

• business and community responsibility including sustainable environment issues

• more guest writing

• more executive summaries

• more information about other AICD activities

Advertising implications:

• amount of advertising is just right (72 percent)

• a minority (16 percent) say there is too much

• contains advertising targeting to business people (71 percent)

• 19 percent use Company Director advertising to source products and services

• 21 percent likely to recommend Company Director as a medium for their company to advertise in. Subscription opportunities

• 92 percent of members endorse broadening the circulation of Company Director to non-members on subscription.

The survey is only a guide but it does provide a useful pointer to a range of issues. Any comment on the survey results would be welcomed. I thank all those directors who took part in the survey.

Disclaimer

The purpose of this database is to provide a full-text record of all articles that have appeared in the CDJ since February 1997. It is aimed to assist in the research and reference process. The database has a full-text index and will enable articles to be easily retrieved.It should be noted that information contained in this database is in pre-publication format only - IT IS NOT THE FINAL PRINTED VERSION OF THE CDJ - therefore there might be slight discrepancies between the contents of this database and the printed CDJ.