The stakeholders of an organization include various groups of either people who affect the business directly or indirectly. They are categorized into four major groups as users, contributors, governance, and influencers. Users are those people who will be final consumers of the business goods or services; they are part of the business beneficiaries for instance customers (Cameron, & Price, 2009:P.43).
Governance are the people who are very interested on how the business is running for instance the management team, auditors etc. influencers are the people are the people who are capable of changing the business views and direction for instance, trade unions.
Finally, contributors are those people who are the business suppliers. Business partners as well fall under this category of contributors, and anyone else providing resources to the business.
The most appropriate way of meeting the stakeholders’ needs is first identifying them through the help of the other business team of staffs (Anderson, 2009:P.213). After identification, each group should have a key individual to represent the whole group. These key people should be people who have the authority to make decisions, and who can act as channel of communication to his or her group.
Through these key people, one would be able to learn the attitude and the specific interests of every group. As one interacts with these representatives, he or she would easily identify their needs. Once you discover their expectations from the business, it would be easy to discuss with the representatives on how to meet those expectations (Silverman, 2007:P.113).
Communication between the business and the stakeholders should be a continuous dialogue. Continuous communication would lead to an effective decision making process. Both internal and external communication protocols can be used depending on the type of the stakeholders. The business may use internal means of communication such as brochures, and newsletters.
Currently, businesses prefer to use the interactive social media methods like the blogs and the social networks like LinkedIn, as they are fast and effective. For the business and its key stakeholders to make decisions quickly, fast means of communication should be adopted to ensure messages are received by the relevant groups and at the right time (Horn, 2009:P.56).
Traditional tools of communication that allowed for only one-way communication is no longer in use. The current social media outlets are giving a two-way communication, immediate feedbacks, and the business as well can hold a discussion with more than one user identities.
Any business that considers its stakeholders interests is always at a more competitive edge. Each stakeholder in a business has a different interest and expectations that may help the business in policy and project formulation.
When the business is implementing its plans and doing evaluation, it is advisable to incorporate the ideas and the interests of the stakeholders to avoid some major problems that may arise in future. The main goals, authority, and relationships among various stakeholders would help the business to facilitate change within the shortest time possible (Horn, 2009:P.82).
The stakeholders’ analysis can greatly improve the performance of the business through identifying the needs and the interests of the powerless people in the society.
For instance, through the suppliers the business would be in a position to acquire resources at affordable prices, hence reducing the operating expenses and increasing the total revenue. A healthy relationship of the business with he stakeholders would result to a well performing business with wide range of connections (Marchington, & Wilkinson, 2008:P.102).
References
Anderson. V. (2009). Research methods in human resource management. 2nd ed. London: Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development.
Cameron, S. & Price, D. (2009). Business research methods: a practical approach. London: Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development.
Horn, R. (2009). Researching and writing dissertations: a complete guide for business and management students. London: Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development.
Horn, R. (2009). The business skills handbook. London: Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development.
Marchington, M. & Wilkinson, A. (2008). Human resource management at work: people management and development. 4th ed. London: Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development.
Silverman, D. (2007). A very short, fairly interesting and reasonably cheap book about qualitative research. London: Sage.