Garda World Security was founded in 1995 by Stephan Cretier,
using money from a second mortgage on his home. Headquartered in Montreal, it
is now one of the world’s ten largest security providers – notably of armored
cars and security guards. Garda has more than 200 offices in the Americas,
Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Middle East. It is also one of the top three cash
logistics brands in North America, handling more than $5 billion (!) every day.
The main About Us page is here.
OVERALL GRADE: B
Products/Services: C
The main
About Us page – the one that the About link in the footer leads to – gives
a good summary of Garda’s purpose and its global reach. But as an introduction
to the site and to Garda company history in general, it’s weak. The top of this
page (and several others in the About Us section) is occupied by an image that
fills most of the space on a desktop screen. Here, it’s a scene of a highway at
night that has no obvious relation to Garda.
The size of the photo is a serious problem because the
left-hand navigation menu is tacked onto it, so the menu that should entice
visitors is out of sight once they scroll down to the page’s text.
And there are more problems. The divisions of the company
aren’t mentioned in the text of the main About Us page. Why not have photos with captions as teasers? The
links within the text to other pages on the site are formatted in a discretely
elegant way that makes them easy to miss.
Another problem: on the main About Us page, the menu
options are Our Businesses, Locations, News and Media, and Careers. But in the
footer of every page, the About menu offers the choices of Our Team, Fast
Facts, Our History, Governance, and Garda in the Community. The inconsistency
is confusing.
Personality: A
The Our Team page starts
off right with a bio of Stephan Cretier (Garda’s founder, chairman, president
and CEO) that sets out how he founded the company and segues into its current
global scope. Nice use of corporate storytelling!
We do cavil at some of the phrasing. For example: “Named
‘Entrepreneur of the Decade’ by Profit Magazine in 2011 as one of eleven
remarkable Canadian CEOs, Stephan Cretier is ...”: was Cretier the Entrepreneur
of the Decade, or one of eleven remarkable Canadian CEOs, or both? Our Commandment 9
of About Us pages is “Worship clarity.” That includes making sure that
every sentence is unambiguous.
Accessibility: B
A red Contact Us bar at the foot of every page allows
visitors to send an email. The Contact
page (accessible via the footer) offers only an online form for contact.
Clicking the link within the text to Locations takes us to a
page that has phones and addresses. But the existence of that page isn’t
obvious due to the annoyingly subtle format used for links.
TAKEAWAY
Take care to make navigation easy and obvious, and never be
elegant at the expense of ease of use. Your business history deserves to be
easily accessible.
Does your Web site’s “About Us” section
accurately convey your organization’s history and capabilities? Every two weeks
we evaluate one example, grading it in three areas that are key to potential
customers: Personality (Who are you?), Products/Services (What can you do for
us?), and Accessibility (How can we reach you?). To talk about your About Us
page, contact us!
Today’s example was chosen at random;
CorporateHistory.net has no ties to this company.
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