By Maira Manesco
Stakeholders are the groups of interest within or outside an organisation which are directly or indirectly impacted by it. Therefore, to maintain a good relationship, to map and manage them, is a crucial process so that the interested parties are involved with every action for the success of the company.
Also known as the target audience, stakeholders can be considered internal or external. The ones that are internal are composed especially of employees, while the ones that are external can be clients, consumers, competitors, suppliers and regulators.
How to intiate the stakeholder mapping process ?
To initiate the stakeholder mapping process, it is necessary to identify the people and entities that impact the company, and then classify them by: degree of dependence, degree of participation and degree of interference.
Next, draw a graph where the public will be represented. On the left side, place the influence, and on the bottom, the importance. Then, distribute the stakeholders on this map. After that, separate your public into three horizontal layers, because you will work with them according to their representativeness.
With stakeholders on the top layer, keep in touch constantly. Let them to get involved in basically every action of the organization. The ones on the layer in the middle do not need that much attention, but they should also be informed of relevant actions, because they may be influential enough to help with whatever is needed. Finally, with the ones on the third layer, the communication can be more generic, with the only purpose of informing.
Following these steps, the mapping of the target audience will be complete. However, it is important to keep it updated, because a stakeholder from the bottom layer can, in some situations, deserve more attention.
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