Stakeholder Management

Take your stakeholders with you

Managing your stakeholders well in difficult times is crucial to executing a winning strategy. In today’s often complicated business environment, there is only one way to manage these diverse relationships and that is through good communication.

Keep your shareholders and lenders informed. Don’t keep secrets and don’t spring surprises. Engage them in a positive dialogue about how you intend to handle the threat of a downturn, the opportunities you believe it presents for your business, what you are doing to address any underlying weaknesses in your structure and the strengths that set you apart in your industry sector.

Stay on your customers’ agenda. Loyalty works for everyone so recognise your customers’ loyalty and reward them for it. Where appropiate develop a key account management programme which will identify your “best” customers – and your worst. Use hard data and emotional intelligence to keep your good customers spending with you through the downturn.

Safeguard your assets by keeping up dialogue with your employees. It can be difficult to reward good performance when money is tight, but there will be other personal advantages to your employees in staying with you and now is the time to re-emphasise those.

• Find out more about executive benefits and compensation 
• Find out more about motivating and retaining employees

Talking to the market can help to turn the tide back in your favour. During the last recession, the highest performing brands were those that substantially raised their advertising expenditure. Brands that cut their marketing spend lost market share. (Source: Taylor Nelson Sofres)

Listen to advice. Use the knowledge that your advisers have acquired from working with a variety of businesses in different sectors to help you in yours.