This is what Future 500 has to say:
Stakeholder Engagement means gaining feedback...
...from every stakeholder category in a company's marketplace.
STAKEHOLDER ENGAGEMENT - Engaging and Reporting
Stakeholder engagement is a formal process of relationship management through which companies or industries engage with a set of their stakeholders in an effort to align their mutual interests, to reduce risk and advance the triple bottom line - the company's financial, social, and environmental performance.
Future 500's sMAP process (download PDF Brochure) helps companies reach business goals more effectively, to increase returns to shareholders and stakeholders. A Stakeholder Map inventories a company's stakeholders, categorizes them, shows their relationships, and diagrams paths the company can follow, to achieve its business objectives while winning the support of its stakeholders as well. It is an indispensable strategic planning tool.
The Stakeholder Map helps the company reach sustainable business targets with maximum support from its full set of stakeholders - internal stakeholders like shareholders and employees, and external ones like customers, political leaders, and community activists.
It is important when navigating through the complexities of local, regional and national business opportunities - with a complex array of laws, regulations, power groups, suppliers, customers, and activists. It is essential when your field of operation is global, where legal, political, cultural, and marketplace factors are much more diverse and often less defined and established.
Say the company wants to access new markets, but faces a variety of potential barriers - some known, most not. These barriers and opportunities are mostly in three categories. Technology - you need the right set. Policy - you need fair and practical laws and regulations. Marketplace - you need demand for the products and services.
Future 500's proprietary Stakeholder Mapping method inventories and categorizes all the stakeholders that will impact the company's success. It highlights the most important specific stakeholders, the issues and needs that drive them, and the actions the company can take to insure that their interests are aligned with them.
The Future 500's Stakeholder Map helps enable our best-known global companies to site new facilities, end litigation, improve regulations, and earn the support of their stakeholder communities.
The process is simple and powerful. It is carried out either in consultation with your staff, or in a group setting involving your stakeholder team, and consists of five segments:
Set Goals and Objectives
Inventory Your Stakeholders
Categorize Your Stakeholders
Assign Modes of Engagement
Identify Paths to Your Goals
Future 500 has developed a unique software tool to capture the complexity and the dynamism of your stakeholder relations we call the sMapping Tool.
The forms of engagement depend on your objective and the type of stakeholder. For example, consider the following guidelines for the mode of engagement, and the appropriate method and metrics for each.
Mode Method and Metrics Track Monitor (using CAP Gap and Opinion Leader Survey) Inform Report/Communique (using CAP Gap and Opinion Leader Survey) Consult Back Channel Dialogue (get direct feedback) Support Strategic Philanthropy (then conduct a Project Evaluation) Partner Joint Project (then conduct a Project Evaluation) Network Joint Project (then conduct a Project Evaluation)
Priorities for engagement can be set using the Four Quadrants method
Deliverable:
The deliverable or outcome depends on the objective. The outcome might involve policy development, adoption of a new corporate practice, or establishment of a pilot program.
Reporting:
With stakeholders engaged, companies often publicize their efforts. If needed, our global team CAP Partners -- Arcadis, DNV, Ecos Technologies, ERM, MS&L, WSP and others - can work with you to create a reporting database and a system of regular annual reports and periodic communiqués, to reach stakeholders with critical information on the company's stakeholder performance. Often called sustainability, citizenship, environmental, or public reports, these corporate reports demonstrate transparency and allow stakeholders to evaluate and compare companies.
