The Role Of Stakeholders & Strategy Planning

Definition Of A Stakeholder

A stakeholder is a person, organization, group, or society at large that features a stake within the business. Thus, stakeholders are often internal or external to the business. A stake may be a vital interest within the business or its activities. It can include ownership and property interests, legal interests and obligations, and moral rights. A legal obligation could also be the duty to pay wages or to honor contracts. An ethical right may include propriety of a consumer to not be intentionally harmed by business activities. Stakeholders can:

• Affect a business
• Be suffering from a business
• Be both suffering from a business and affect a business

A stakeholder is usually contrasted against a shareholder, which has an ownership interest within the business. R. Edward Freeman and his book – Strategic Management: A Stakeholder Approach (1984) has had a serious influence on stakeholder theory.

The concept of a stakeholder does have moral and ethical implications for business governance. If a business only features a duty to its shareholders, then the business may haven’t any moral obligations to the other person, organization or society. On the opposite hand, if a business features a duty to its stakeholders, then a business must take into consideration the interests of its stakeholders also and not focus completely on maximizing the interests of its owners.

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What is Stakeholder Analysis?

Stakeholder analysis could also be a very useful technique for identifying, understanding and prioritizing all stakeholders who may wield influence or power over a business. Among other things, analyzing stakeholders will reveal:

1. Who they are, what their needs and expectations could even be, and
2. What issues interest or drives them (and to what degree).

As importantly, this exercise will reveal their true level of interest and/or influence over a business. A thorough analysis will make sure that all affected parties are duly considered. Having access to the present knowledge can greatly improve the outcomes in conflict resolution. It also can make your day-to-day stakeholder engagement efforts far more targeted.

Why Analyze Stakeholders?

Not all stakeholders deserve an equivalent amount of attention. This is why conducting stakeholder analysis is so beneficial. It allows you to properly identify all stakeholders and to categorize them so as of importance because it pertains to your efforts to secure social acceptance and ensure successful delivery. More specifically, this analysis will tell you the interests of all stakeholders who may impact or be impacted by the project, the attributes of project advocates and opponents, also the interrelationships and interfaces that exist between them. In other words, it’ll tell you ways these different groups interact and how this interaction could also be serving or jeopardizing the interests of an enterprise. During your stakeholder analysis, you will also uncover any potential risks, issues or misunderstandings which can disrupt the project. This information is significant for knowing what sort of communication and messaging will best help to assuage perceived negative impacts and amplifying the positives. Stakeholder analysis will identify who exactly you ought to be engaging, informing and/or encouraging to participate during the project’s execution phase – and to what extent. This valuable information should function as the inspiration for your stakeholder management strategy and messaging.

When performed on an ongoing basis, stakeholder analysis also will tell you ways your key stakeholder groups are changing over time – in terms of who they are, how their needs or expectations could also be evolving and the way your relationship with them has improved – or deteriorated. Let us explore the various kinds of stakeholder analysis, what elements they have in common and what could be the benefits or gains of conducting frequent and ongoing stakeholder analysis are: (Hint: it is to try to with classifying stakeholders exerting their influence and power then understanding their motivations so that you’ll prioritize your efforts and resources accordingly to realize the specified outcomes).

How to Identify Stakeholders?

Stakeholders are often identified in several ways:

1. Team brainstorming: The thought here is to return up with the longest possible list of potential Not all suggestions are going to be retained but reserve judgment for the top. It’s better to comb out than to overlook.
2. Team members’ experience: The likelihood is that your team has built up valuable knowledge over time, so make certain to tap into it.
3. Historical data: Your organization may have accumulated piles of knowledge from previous projects. Using this data to inform your stakeholder analysis simply is wise because it promotes efficiency and building on experience.
4. Comparable: Sometimes you will be operating at a new location or on a special sort of project. Whenever possible, search for similar projects and identify stakeholders who may have played a key role. The likelihood is that an equivalent sort of stakeholders will impact (or be impacted by) your current project.

The more approaches you employ, the less likely you are to overlook key stakeholders.

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In Conclusion

Knowing who your stakeholders are is significant. Understanding their motivations and concerns is equally so. This is often where stakeholder analysis comes in. It is important to research stakeholders in the early stages of the business. This may allow for proactively developing a stakeholder engagement strategy. This usually produces more amenable outcomes and equilibrium. Many models are often wont to analyze stakeholders, each with its own strengths and weaknesses. The foremost appropriate model will probably depend upon the nature of the business and available resources. Stakeholder management could also be about using a mixture of models to realize a more thorough understanding of their key stakeholder groups and their potential impact on the project.

About The Author

Currently, the Co- Chancellor at Commonwealth University, Dr. Dilip also engages in consulting at CXO level, strategy formulation and higher education. An alumnus of Asian Institute of Management Manila Philippines, he specialized in Marketing and Strategic Planning & is a B.Sc. (Hons) in Chemistry. He has a Doctoral degree from Thapar University, Patiala.

Beginning November 15, 1976, Dr. Nandkeolyar has had varied hands-on, bottom-up combined professional experience of over 40 years in the field in Industry, Consulting, Research, Training and Teaching. He is an internationally quoted author and has been invited as key note speaker at many international conferences.