A stakeholder who has a direct or indirect interest in activities, performance, tactical plan, strategic plan, business decisions, productivity, efficiency, market share, acquisition, capital status, profit & loss of an organization. Managing stakeholders is an essential skill of team management.
Types of stakeholders
- Customers / client
- Suppliers
- Distributors
- Dealers
- Shareholders
- Investors
- Venture capitalists
- Certification bodies
- Government bodies
- Regulatory and statutory bodies
- Internal departments
- Auditing firms,
- Cross-functional teams
- Employees
- Project Lead
- Project Team members
- Management,
- Board of directors
- Communities & society
- Union
How to manage stakeholders?
Refer to the following poster to understand how to manage stakeholders?
How to identify stakeholders?
To identify stakeholders, the SIPOC tool can be helpful. SIPOC tool helps to list down the process from input to output similar way stakeholders can be identified by using the SIPOC tool. Another technique to identify stakeholders in brainstorming sessions.
Refer following questions to identify the right stakeholders,
- List down stakeholders who will be impacted directly or indirectly by a strategic plan?
- Stakeholders impacted directly or indirectly due to change in the statutory and regulatory requirements.
- Stakeholders impacted directly or indirectly due to Government policies.
- Stakeholders impacted directly or indirectly due to market share, capital, growth, and profit.
- Stakeholders who impacted directly or indirectly due to statutory, quality, and financial audits.
Stakeholder Management:
Better co-ordination and business relationships with stakeholders essential for better results and efficiency. Not every stakeholder is the same. Some stakeholders are difficult to handle or you cannot influence stakeholders. Some stakeholders require frequent attention or assistance in getting the task accomplished.
Organizations must handle external stakeholders like certification agency carefully.
Following key tips can help to manage stakeholder,
- Prepare a list of all stakeholders
- Know Your Stakeholder (roles and responsibilities, authority of each key stakeholder, background)
- Identify internal and external stakeholders
- Build a stakeholder map as per importance and influence level
- Establish communication method, timeline & KPI (key performance indicators) with each stakeholder.
