Reading more, beyond the bottom line... Use the company's website to learn as much as possible about your company, its industry and what it is talking about to drive its future growth.
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A company's official website offers several key benefits:
Marketing Information: Learn about your company's products and/or services.
Company Structure: How is the company divided? Does it have subsidiaries or divisions? If so, what they do, on how much they represent overall sales.
FAQs: While it may seem unusual, it's always interesting to find out what the company thinks are its most "Frequently-asked Questions." This may tell you that there's a common problem, or need, that consumers inquire about, and may indicate something new about the company.
Company Leadership: The CEO, CFO and other top Officers. Who are they, and where have they worked in the past? What other experience have they had in this industry? Or, do they have specific experience in other industries that may tell you of a future shift in focus for the company.
Investor Relations: Get to know every part of this section. It will tell you a great deal about the company's current financial condition, and where it is going.
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[Note: Of course, the site design will change regularly, but this is what we found on Intel's site at the time] [Direct link: here >]
Marketing Information: The home page of Intel's website is like a billboard advertisement, but it stresses the announcement of their "all-new 2010 Intel Core Processor Family" of microprocessors. It then divides your choices for entry into three key areas: Work: for business, Play: for consumers, and About Intel.
The "Work" section highlights products and provides technical support and download links, and further discusses their technology. Key takeaway: They stress speed/performance, and are driven by new mobile technologies, graphics chips, and even had one area regarding their work with Genomics and DNA sequencing. [Direct link: here >]
The "Play" section is intended to help consumers choose the right computing platform with the right Intel processor for them, including for mobile and gaming devices... [Direct link: here >]
The "About" section is where you can find helpful links to Investor Relations, more on their technology, and corporate information. [Direct link: here >]
Company Structure: This is always best found under Investor Relations, which is where we found it. Here the Company Organization is described as a split among nine key groups:
PC Client Group - Notebooks, Netbooks and Desktops
Data Center Group - Server, Storage and Workstation Platforms
Embedded and Communications Group - Software and Scalable Platforms
Digital Home Group - Next-generation consumer electronics devices
Ultra-Mobility Group - Next-generation handheld, low-powered devices
NAND Solutions Group - NAND flash memory products
Wind River Software Group - Software Subsidiary
Software and Services Group - Software and Consulting Services.
Digital Health Group - Products designed to reduce healthcare costs [Direct link: here >]
FAQs: Interesting to note that Intel did not actually list questions that were frequently asked, but rather just organized its links again, by common category. No real additional benefit found here (and there won't always be new information that will benefit you here) [Direct link: here >]
Company Leadership: Again, interesting. Intel does not showcase its top management on its website, as most do. In fact, we had to go back to the Yahoo! Finance company profile page to find the list of top officers in Intel's leadership ranks. Here's what we found:
Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and President: Mr. Paul S. Otellini , 59
Chief Financial Officer: Mr. Stacy J. Smith , 48
Chief Admin. Officer and Exec. VP of Technology, Manufacturing & Enterprise Services: Mr. Andy Bryant , 59
Exec. VP and GM of Intel Architecture Group: Mr. Sean Maloney , 53
Exec. VP and GM of Intel Architecture Group: Mr. David Perlmutter , 56
In addition to determining their names, it is helpful to understand their respective backgrounds and experience inside and outside this semiconductor industry, so we have provided you with a sample Google search link below (i.e., we searched for: "Intel+bio+Otellini") where we found buried Intel press releases and also Wikipedia pages on these individuals. [Company Profile - Direct link: here >] [Sample Bio Search - Direct link: here >]
Investor Relations: Here you find the basic required SEC filing documents, but usually in a very attractive and organized presentation on each company website, and Intel doesn't disappoint. Something unusual that we found is an "Education Center" link within Investor Relations, which takes advantage of embedded video capability to present some pretty neat videos on Intel's technology and specific applications. [Direct link: here >]
In the next step, Annual Report, we examine both the company's polished marketing tool that they publish each year, their "Annual Report," which is much different than what the SEC requires annually through the required "Form 10-K" for all publicly-traded companies...
More about this in Step 220...
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