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The Stakeholder Quadrant

There are many areas of business that we juggle daily. The Stakeholder Quadrant comprises of four critical areas. Each of the areas influence each other differently but should be looked upon as an integral structure for your business to achieve success.

The Stakeholder Quadrant includes four groups:The Stakeholder Quadrant

  1. Customers
  2. Employees
  3. Shareholders
  4. Suppliers

What's interesting about these four groups is how each of them uniquely influences your business.

Successful business owners adopt a fanatical and fastidious dedication to understanding each of these stakeholder groups. They invest in building greater relationships together on a win-win basis that delivers leverage to both parties.

Recommended tactics for each stakeholder group

  • Customers

    In the B2B world, in which most of us live, customers don't want to do business with 'businesses' they want to do business with 'people'.
       
    Establishing relationships based on integrity and trust is critical. To do this, you need to listen to your customers and help them achieve their dreams or avoid their fears. This takes time and guts.

    Act in a way that converts your customers into raving fans and walking billboards.

  • Employees

    Employees are the lifeblood of any business.

    If you engage, empower and reward your employees they will play a bigger game for you.

    Explain to them your top goals - your mission goals - and obtain their buy-in on helping you achieve them.

    Provide them with their top goals - their crew goals - and educate them on how delivering on their crew goals leads to the achievement of the business' mission goals. Promise them that you will appraise them and remunerate them based on their delivery of these goals, and retention of existing talent and attraction of new talent will follow.

  • Shareholders

    Ensure that shareholders wear an independent 'hat' when assessing the business, asking questions and providing feedback.

    Be timely and generous in management reporting and sharing information.

    Even if you work operationally in the business and own the business, adopt the habit of wearing two hats - an 'operational hat' and a 'shareholder hat'.

    Under your shareholder hat, think about the business objectively as an investor and ask questions around commerciality, risk, profitability and ROI. Focus on transparency, objectivity and commerciality.

  • Suppliers

    Often forgotten as the fourth member of the Stakeholder Quadrant, the humble supplier should be seen as an inverse customer relationship. You are the customer to your supplier.

    Like your customers, you want absolute commitment from your suppliers. You want guaranteed supply of the best products and services, at the best price, on the best terms.

    You want suppliers that can bring you a competitive edge; suppliers that can help add value to your customer relationships.

    Aim to build long-term relationships with suppliers. Treat them with respect, communicate with them and pay them on time. Share your vision and needs with them. Ask for their help.

    Perceive suppliers as part of your business model and nurture these relationships.

How to optimise the Stakeholder Quadrant


Appointing custodians within your business - one for each stakeholder - is helpful in optimising the stakeholder quadrant.

Choose a custodian that is the best person suited to the stakeholder group. Ask team members to nominate themselves or others as custodians. Generally, the most suitable custodian will be obvious.

Each custodian is responsible for the culture of their stakeholder. It is important that your entire team is committed to supporting the custodian. Custodians should report monthly to the team on current stakeholder sentiment.

Author Credits

Darren K Bourke is a Business Coach to small and medium businesses. Having worked with nearly one thousand businesses, Darren has an intuitive understanding of what makes businesses succeed. He is the Author of The Fourth Moon - A step-by-step process for sustainable business success. For further information, visit his website: www.darrenkbourke.com
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