Hi,
We hope you had a great bank holiday weekend last week – although it may feel as though it’s in the dim and distant past by now.
Before we get into this week’s topic, we’ve got some great news – the new website is now up and running. Hooray! It’s only taken 6 months đĄ
Still, good things come to those who wait, and we’re delighted with how the new site has turned out. If you’d like to have a peek, head over to www.xenongroup.co.uk.
By the time you receive next week’s newsletter, we’ll have completed the much anticipated back catalogue of these newsletters, so you’ll be able to go back and refresh your memory on the topics we’ve covered.
Anyway, let’s move into this week’s topic. In the last issue, we talked about stakeholders – who they are, how to categorise them etc.
This week, we’ll be examining how to determine their requirements and expectations so we can make sure that – to the best of our ability – we can keep them all happy.
This process is called Stakeholder Analysis.
Stakeholder Analysis
Stakeholder analysis is defined as the process of identifying those affected by any activity undertaken within a business.
Stakeholder analysis is a term used in business administration to describe a process where all the individuals or groups that are likely to be affected by the activities of the organisation are identified and then sorted according to how much they can affect the organisation and how much the activities within the organisation can affect them.
This information is then used to assess how the interests of those stakeholders should be addressed in the business plan.
Stakeholder analysis has the goal of developing cooperation between the stakeholder and the organisation and, ultimately, assuring successful outcomes for the organisation.
The main interests of the various stakeholders will vary as clearly some elements will be more important for some than others.
Nevertheless, if we are to develop good relationships with all stakeholders it is vital that we understand the key drivers for the individual groups and we work out a method for identifying the interests of all involved.
Stakeholder analysis may be a complex procedure or may simply involve making a quick list of stakeholders and their interests. By undertaking a simple stakeholder analysis you can quickly and easily determine:
- Who will be affected
- Who could influence the process or outcomes
- Which individuals, groups or organisations need to be involved;
- More specifically, doing a stakeholder analysis can:
- Draw out the interests of stakeholders in relation to problems you are trying to resolve by providing a service
- Identify conflicts of interest between stakeholders, which may influence the assessment of risk if you are looking at introducing a new service for example;
- Help to identify relations between stakeholders which can be built upon. Some stakeholders will be your staff.
- Help to assess the appropriate type of participation by different stakeholders, at successive stages of the project.
There are four main categories that we need to take account of when considering stakeholder interests. These are:
- The Cost and/or financial performance
- Legal and statutory performance
- Performance against the Contract and Service Specification
- Risk and business continuity
As mentioned above, the four categories will have varying levels of importance for each of the stakeholder groups.
That’s enough for now!
Don’t worry, we’re not going to leave it at that, but we think there’s enough information there for this time on a Monday morning!
We’re going to take a closer look at each category in more detail over the coming weeks, as well as considering them in the light of the various stakeholder groups.
But for now, let all that sink in and start thinking about who your stakeholders are and how to keep them happy.
In the meantime, have a great week!
Chris and the Xenon Team
P.S. If you havenât already studied or started studying for an IWFM qualification, which will cover topics like this in depth and fully assess your understanding, you may want to have a look at our guide to the IWFM Qualifications which will give you a full breakdown of how they work and whatâs involved in the different levels. You can download it here.
P.P.S. If youâre already considering taking a qualification but donât know which level to go for, a good starting point is our One-Minute-Leveller tool, which will ask you a few questions and give you a recommendation based on the result. You can access it here.