In 1941 Dr. Homer Stryker, an orthopedist in Kalamazoo,
Michigan, was dissatisfied with medical products that didn’t meet his patients’
needs. So he established a company to manufacture items to his own
specifications. He invented the Turning Frame (for repositioning patients who
needed to remain immobile), the Cast Cutter, and the Walking Heel. His company became
Stryker Corporation in 1964 and went public in 1979. Today Stryker is one of
the world’s top medical technology firms, producing implants used in joint
replacement, surgical equipment, emergency medical equipment, neurosurgical
devices, and more. Still based in
Kalamazoo, Stryker is a Fortune 500 company with 22,000 employees and annual
sales of $8.7 billion. The main About Us page is here.
OVERALL GRADE: C
minus
Products/Services: C
The summary on the main About Us
page is short and to the point: what field the company is in, what medical
technologies it offers, and its global reach. Most of the space on this page is
taken up by a link to the 2013 Annual Review.
Unlike most annual reviews, this one is heavy on the illustrations and laid out
with photos and headlines that do a great job conveying the excitement of
Stryker’s cutting-edge work.
The timeline, Company
History, is not so impressive. The narrative at the top skips from Dr.
Homer Stryker’s interest in creating better medical products straight to
Stryker’s current position as a global leader in medical technology. A quick
overview of the company’s expansion would be useful here, because it’s
impossible to get such an overview from the timeline that follows.
In the timeline, the first 10 or so items are well chosen.
But from there, it degenerates into a list of 50-odd acquisitions, milestones,
and awards, all presented with equal emphasis. The awards would certainly have
more of an impact on a page of their own. Our Commandment
5 of About Us pages is, “Honor thy readers and their attention spans.” We
doubt that anyone will ever wade through this timeline—especially because it
contains not a single image. And Stryker misses an easy opportunity for
corporate storytelling. Why not tell us a little more about the evolution of
Stryker from a family business to a publicly held firm, and let us know if any
Stryker descendants are still involved?
Personality: D
Not much personality here. The CEO’s
biography could apply to any leader of any company, and appears, mysteriously,
on a page with the title “Johnson.” Little information is given on the founder
of Stryker, although in a stunning example of inessential information, his
birthdate begins the company timeline.
Accessibility: C
The Contact Us
page offers many different departments, but no names of specific people. As
always, this leaves us with the impression that the company doesn’t really want
to communicate with us.
TAKEAWAY
If your company is the result of one man’s vision and still
runs on that, make sure to feature his goals and values prominently in your About
Us pages, and tie the corporate history and current status to it.
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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