Analysis: The key to successful stakeholder management is to know and understand your stakeholders, i.e., their needs, priorities, preferences, and concerns. We include the following in our analyses:
- Demographic data – what are the data and segments?
- Social networks – what are the social connections between stakeholders?
- Desires and requirements – what does the company’s environment expect?
- What communication, how often and in which formats and channels?
- What are the existing attitudes, opinions, and views on the company’s performance?
- Who and what influences the formation of opinions?
Mapping: There are essentially two standard paradigms for mapping stakeholders, where stakeholders are mapped based on their influence and behavior, respectively.
We rate and prioritize in operational models and scenarios that enable relevant actions and activities.
Involvement: Involvement requires clear strategies for goals, scope, and means. We typically work with ladders for increased involvement, illustrating an increased degree of stakeholder involvement. The higher the degree of participation on the involvement ladder, the more extensive the involvement is. The ladder goes from non-participation, over symbolic involvement, and actual participation to independent decision-making power.
Key questions are whether the individual stakeholder is heard, whether there is co-determination on how the problem should be approached, and on which measures should be taken.
Compliance: All stakeholder management requires handling personal data, and of course, you must be particularly aware of the GDPR requirements that came into force in May 2018. Most other countries have increasingly tightened requirements for, for example:
- Which data can be collected and stored legally
- How to obtain permission to collect this data
- Where to store this data (and where the team that accesses its data to provide support services is located)
- What security measures are in place to protect this data
Compliance is about keeping track of which data you are processing, and where data is stored and moves to comply with the data protection regulation. It is required by law and also helps to create security for customers, partners, and employees.