STAKEHOLDER MAP AND ANALYSIS - Strategic Planning
A Stakeholder Map inventories and categorizes a company's stakeholders, shows their Inter-relationships, and diagrams paths the company can follow to achieve its business objectives while winning support from its stakeholders. It is an invaluable strategic planning tool that helps companies allocate their limited human and financial resources to meeting stakeholders' needs.
The Process: The Stakeholder Map and Analysis is carried out either in consultation with your staff, or in a group setting involving your stakeholder team, and consists of the following five segments:
1. Set Goals and Objectives
Identifies your objectives, and internal stakeholders served by those objectives. Focuses on proactive, not reactive approach.
2. Inventory Your Stakeholders
Includes all five major stakeholder groups:
Shareholders (traditional, institutional, socially responsible)
Workplace (executives, employees, contractors, workers in supply chain)
Community (where you source, operate, and sell)
Marketplace (suppliers, customers, consumers)
Environment (natural resources and systems)
3. Categorize Your Stakeholders
Typical categories include: Funders, Policy, Direct Action, Membership Organizations, Philanthropic, Investor Relations, Marketing, Academic, International
4. Assign Modes of Engagement
Each stakeholder is assigned a mode of engagement, representing the best way to engage with that group on the specific objective. Then, specific methods and metrics are selected and matched to each mode of engagement:
| Mode of Engagement | Examples | |
| Track; | Web News Tracking | |
| Inform | E-Newsletter | |
| Consult | Stakeholder Meetings or Survey | |
| Support | Grants and Sponsorships | |
| Collaborate | Focused Project | |
| Network | Join An Existing Network | |
| Partner | Major Joint project |
5. Identify Paths to Your Goals
For any specific business objective, the stakeholder map diagrams your set of stakeholders, and a path by which you can reach your objective while serving your stakeholders' interests as well.
The Stakeholder Map and Analysis can be performed independently but is also designed to complement Future 500's CAP Gap Audit and stakeholder survey and engagement services. For example, when a company employs the CAP Gap Audit, it measures its performance in relation to third-party standards using the same five corporate accountability stakeholder categories noted above to inventory a company's stakeholders:
- Corporate Governance
- Workplace
- Community
- Marketplace
- Environment
Future 500 has developed a unique software tool to capture the complexity and the dynamism of your stakeholder relations we call the sMapping Tool. For more information on our sMAP process, download our PDF brochure.
Deliverable: (1) Stakeholder Matrix with comprehensive inventory of stakeholders by category, (2) Stakeholder Map diagramming a path from status quo to business objectives, (3) Planning Intensive where your team reviews, revises, and develops plans.
Time to Completion and Cost: Four to six weeks from inception with cost negotiable.
More Information: To learn more about the Future 500 CAP Stakeholder Map and Analysis, contact , or U.S. (415) 294-7775.
