Luiz A. Heeren, Partner

"Stakeholder engagement is a fundamental management tool and should be part of any company's strategic and planning cycles.  Senior Management’s vision is often blurred by the internal inputs from different functional sources.  Internal inputs can be very biased as most of the time they are affected by internal politics, competition and different conflicting interests; they can be very delusional and give the company a false direction. Indirect external inputs can also be very delusional as general media tend to be influenced by many different and conflicting interests as well.

Direct Stakeholder Engagement gives a company’s management the unique opportunity to get a different but rounded perspective of the business they run. It is the perspective of the society that their business is part of. If one selects the right stakeholders through a proper stakeholders mapping, the richness of the inputs will definitely give the business invaluable insights and ideas that will change the way the business is run. The combination of these insights and the ones you get through the traditional sources (media, research, and industry data) will give you the right material for setting the right business strategy and operational plans.

One important output of the process is that Stakeholders tend to respect and value your business more and more just for the fact that you are honestly listening to their inputs. Regulators for example, are the ones positively affected by the process and one gets a chance to influence regulation process going forward without getting the prejudice that one always gets for the traditional “lobby” attempts.

My experience is that after Senior Management is exposed to Stakeholder Engagement they cannot live without it, as I could not".  

Tomas Klvana, Consultant

"Proper and strategic stakeholder engagement has become a must-do for corporations. It simply is part of a core business function. In today’s world defined by social and electronic media that operate on a 24-hour basis companies are under incredible pressure. As they say, you do not have a second chance to make the first impression, and bad repuation, that can occur as a result of poor management of key stakeholders, is very difficult and expensive to reverse.

My international consulting experience tells me that rather that firefight here and there, smart companies have a carefully prepared strategy how to engage and manage relevant internal and external stakeholders. There is a direct link between this and a company bottom line".  

Karin Mueller, Consultant

"I believe in the power of conversation when assessing an issue and identifying the best solutions.  It’s not always easy for organisations to open themselves up to potentially opposing views and criticism -  but there is great business value in bringing together different perspectives, identifying common ground and using this as a basis for a solution focused debate.  Stakeholder engagement is not about convincing anyone or even worse, PR.  It’s about exploring an issue from different perspectives in order to make better business decisions".