The Stakeholder Pulse Barometer (SPB) & Stakeholder & Customer Relationship Management

Today, more than at any time in the past, sustained organisational success depends on the development and management of key stakeholder, partner and customer relationships.

To develop these relationships, organisations typically undertake many investments at many levels including :

The What : Developing and maintaining the channels, systems, forums, networks and other mechanisms to capture intelligence, develop awareness, communicate, build trust and understanding, influence, and align.
The Who : Identifying, analyzing and prioiritising stakeholders and customers at group and individual levels,
The How : Formulating and implementing improvement strategies to achieve desired goals (eg building support for a business initiative) and allocating responsibility for action.

However, despite their efforts, success has proven illusory for many organisations as they fail to :

Gain the commitment of a critical mass of stakeholders to business goals,
Mobilize & engage stakeholders around critical tasks,
Build the networks and partnerships through which to execute strategy,
Respond appropriately to stakeholder and customer needs and concerns,
Negotiate and manage commitments from partners and others,
Demonstrate improvements to customers within acceptable timeframes, and,
Maintain organisational focus and momentum around agreed strategies.

Challis International assists organisations develop and maintain stakeholder and customer relationships by :

Providing assistance in the development, planning and implementation of relationship management elements - the what, who and how discussed above, and
Providing sensing tools and diagnostics to capture and analyse stakeholder perceptions, needs and reactions, evaluate the effectiveness of actions taken and take corrective action in an appropriate timeframe,
Helping build a repository of stakeholder intelligence to support the implementation of today’s strategies and the identification of tomorrow’s opportunities.

We offer stakeholder and customer sensing tools and diagnostics at two different levels.

Level 1 tools involve detailed surveying of the stakeholder and customer pool, typically using web based surveying tools and questions based on proven diagnostic models. The information captured is then subject to expert analysis using rigorous statistical analysis techniques and benchmark data. Recommendations for improvement tend to focus on systemic issues identified in the analysis.

Level 2 tools (the Stakeholder Pulse Barometer or SPB), involves the ongoing snapshot, or pulse, surveying of stakeholders and customers typically using web based tools and questions based on models and issues with known high stakeholder & customer face validity (eg service pricing models). The information captured is typically used as a management tool with individual managers owning/interpreting ‘their’ data and formulating improvement strategies at a local or functional level.

A comparison of the two different approaches is provided in the table below

Feature	Level 1	Level 2
Approach	Capture and analyse detailed information based on proven diagnostic models	Capture high level information around key pulse points
Benefits	Identify broad deficiencies and formulate improvement plans	Helps formulate local improvement strategies. Facilitates ongoing stakeholder engagement & dialogue
Sponsor/Owner	The Executive or a Senior Line Manager	Typically distributed across senior managers..’your tool to help you manage your relationships’
Frequency	Typically annually	Typically quarterly but may be biannually
Survey Instrument	Detailed diagnostic…may involve over 100 questions grouped around key factors	Typically limited to less than 20 questions
Survey Questions	Fixed	Combination of fixed and variable
Survey Response Rate	Typically 30% to 40% (blind/unincentivised)	Typically 50% to 60% (blind/unincentivised)
Results Evaluation	Information compared against known benchmarks	Information analysed for patterns and trends
Effort/Cost	Significant	Minimal

Summary of Key Features…

A powerful tool to generate energy and facilitate dialogue – flags issues and starts conversations to explore changes, impacts and opportunities,
Provides information to identify and drive improvement opportunities at multiple levels - organisational wide through local; work group,
May be fully customised (language/terminology, question set focus, proforma and report formats and apprearance, security etc) to meet organisational specific requirements
Results presented in dashboard format (eg traffic light) to readily identify key areas for improvement with drill down functionality to explore and issues and trends,
Questions focus on organisation-relevant factors creating strong face validity with respondents and users; that is question set customised to user requirements/situation,
Minimal respondent effort with no ‘behind the scenes’ administration effort,
Simple and user friendly questions and data format; immediate feedback,
Information ‘owned’ by Line Managers/Workgroup promoting localised accountability to act,
Web browser based ensuring that there is only ‘one version of the truth’,
Simple graphs used to promote intuitive understanding,
May include security provisions to restrict access,
Can be used in conjunction with more detailed analytical tools and diagnostics administered over longer timeframes

View/Complete Stakeholder Pulse Barometer Proforma Example,
View Stakholder Pulse Barometer Summary Results Example,
View Stakeholder Pulse Barometer Detailed Results Example

Want to know more about the Stakeholder Pulse Barometer, please contact us