As a CFO or FP&A you will be required to understand and set the right strategy to deal with different types of stakeholders who are affected by your organization and at the same time your organization has an impact on them.
There are many benefits of stakeholders’ analysis like identifying and effectively managing your key stakeholders, getting more resources by engaging with influential stakeholders, increasing the quality of your business by receiving input from stakeholders with high expertise, etc.
Let’s explore the four steps of Stakeholder Analysis in more detail:
1. Identify Your Stakeholders. Start by brainstorming who your stakeholders are.
2. Clarify the interest and Influence of stakeholders.
3. Prioritize Your Stakeholders. You may now have a list of people and organizations that are affected by your work.
4. Agree on the process of engagement between stakeholders and manage the relationship with them.
How does the stakeholders’ analysis work? It works through effectively segmenting your stakeholders into 4 different strategies, and setting the right strategy for each group as follows:
1. High Influence / High Impact
Strategy: Manage closely … Collaborate.
You must fully engage and collaborate with these people and make the greatest efforts to satisfy them.
2. High Influence / Low Impact
Strategy: Keep Satisfied …Inform.
Put enough work in with these people to keep them satisfied, but not so much that they become bored with your message
3. Low Influence / High Impact
Strategy: Keep Informed … Consult.
Adequately inform these people and talk to them to ensure that no major issues are arising. People in this category can often be very helpful with the detail of your project.
4. Low Influence / Low Impact
Strategy: Minimum Efforts … Monitor
Monitor these people, but don’t bore them with excessive communication.