Virtually all the senior procurement leaders we have interviewed for articles here have stressed the importance of working successfully with key stakeholders to develop successful procurement with purpose (PwP) programmes.
They are undoubtedly correct in their analysis. If you are developing or implementing a sustainability approach or a PwP initiative in your organisation, you need to understand the stakeholders. That means both key individuals internally but also the five wider key stakeholder groups in terms of the sustainable and purposeful business movement.
Some can help to drive change; some are reactive and simply respond. There is some overlap too. For instance, you may well be a customer of many firms, an employee and probably an investor too, directly or through your pension fund or savings schemes.
Groups share some interests, but can also have different outlooks on the key issues. That is true of us as individuals, as we have our own internal conflicts. We can see the environmental benefits of cycling and perhaps love doing it ourselves, yet get frustrated by the behaviour of some cyclists when we are driving! We want to buy products manufactured or farmed in a sustainable and thoughtful manner; but the 3 for 2 offer on cheap chicken fillets catches our eye. Flying to the Med for a holiday is not a very sustainable activity; but after a tough pandemic year, don’t we deserve our break? And our viewpoint as an investor might be different from that we hold as a customer of a firm.
Those examples highlight the complexities within the sustainable and purposeful business agenda. Such challenges have to be managed, and balancing different interests will continue to be a key role for politicians, Boards, and senior corporate executives.
Let’s examine the five key stakeholder groups in more detail. They are:
· The customers of organisations, whether those customers are individual consumers, public sector bodies, or other businesses. Ultimately, we can argue that most business change is driven by customer wants, needs and behaviours, and pretty much everyone in the world fits into this group in some way.
· Business owners, whether individuals (owners of private firms and shareholders in public companies) or institutions such as pension funds, investment managers and insurance companies. Owners may be driven by their own beliefs, customer pressure or both.
· Staff within organisations, from CEOs and Boards to the grass roots “shop-floor” workers, who want to drive change and bring that imperative into their workplace. Staff are also customers and consumers (and they may be business owners too), but working within organisations to promote change can bring an added dimension to the picture.
· Governments, and regulatory bodies linked to government, that have increasingly legislated to drive certain business behaviour, arguably in turn driven by the expectations of citizens (the voters).
· Other interested and expert parties, including the media, academics, charities and lobby groups who have raised awareness of issues generally or specifically. Whilst such individuals and organisations would probably not achieve much if the general public were not showing an interest in these topics, many provide valuable information and act as an amplifying force as the sustainable business movement develops.
All these groups are made up ultimately of people, but their interests and viewpoints on any particular issue can be different, so they play somewhat different roles when it comes to sustainable business. So if you want to develop a strategy for influencing and communicating what you are doing in procurement with purpose terms, think about segmenting in this sort of way to make sure you create messages for each that are relevant and compelling.