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The importance of stakeholders: identifying and prioritizing stakeholder engagement
Let’s talk about the importance of stakeholders, prioritizing stakeholder engagement and some essential tools to help you get it all done.
What’s a stakeholder?
Stakeholders can include customers, employees, community members, politicians, media, shareholders, suppliers, investors, government departments, regulators, neighboring businesses and nearby residents. Plus all their extended networks of families, friends and colleagues. These people all:
Have their own goals and objectives
Make important decisions that may affect your organization
Have lives that may be affected by your organization’s decisions
Are financially or physically better or worse off when things change
Are connected to a wider network of people who are, in turn, affected by any changes and decisions
So, why do stakeholders matter? And why would you want to engage them?
here are a lot of different ways to do your stakeholder identification, but usually the best place to start is with a brainstorming session. Ask yourself “what individuals or groups of people are likely to be affected by my organization or project?” and “who might influence the project or organization, or the people involved in it?” and then write down anyone that comes to mind.
From there, expand on each individual or group and map out anyone they’re connected to who might also get the flow-on effects.
It’s normal to start with a list of stakeholders, but then add to it over time – there are usually more potential stakeholders than you think.
Depending on your organization, you might focus on the groups most closely connected to your objectives. For example, if you’re a business with a goal to increase your profits through a new initiative, your most important stakeholder group will probably be your customers. Or if you’re a government organization working on a large development project, your most important stakeholder groups would be those people most likely to oppose your project. That way, you can help change their sentiments from negative to neutral or positive.
One technique you can use to prioritize stakeholders is stakeholder mapping. This involves classifying stakeholders based on their level of Influence, impact and interest. From there, you can develop engagement strategies according to the stakeholder mapping groups you’ve created.
https://simplystakeholders.com/the-importance-of-stakeholders/