Good stakeholder engagement can help a business to build strong relationships and generate value in several ways. Improving how you engage with your stakeholders can help you find cost-saving opportunities, negotiate better terms, improve risk management and stimulate supplier innovation. Read on to discover five of the best ways to improve how you engage with your stakeholders in procurement.
1. Organise periodic procurement requirements review meeting
Organise periodic procurement requirements review meetings to allow you to discuss pain points, ask questions and prompt innovation and improvement. Holding a meeting like this monthly, quarterly or even bi-annually will help you build relationships and engagement with stakeholders. Use these meetings as an opportunity to ask important questions and then follow up on the answers to these by taking action to improve outcomes for all.
2. Invite stakeholders to lunch
Take the time to get to know your stakeholders by inviting them for lunch or dinner. This will help you build relationships and, importantly, develop trust. A casual meeting over lunch gives you the opportunity to genuinely get to know your stakeholders, away from the office. Asking questions about their history and role within the company will help you discover their pain points and afford you opportunities to strengthen relationships and demonstrate how you will deliver value.
3. Create a newsletter
Creating an internal procurement newsletter will help you keep stakeholders engaged on an ongoing basis. Create a format that you can reuse each month for your newsletter. This could include, for example, sections on industry news, procurement department announcements, supplier spotlight and information on ongoing projects.
Seek to create content for your newsletter that will provide value so that you can ensure it is worthy of reading. Doing so will help keep you at the front of your stakeholder’s minds as they will appreciate you taking the time to keep them informed.
4. Visit your stakeholders on their turf
Taking the time to visit your stakeholders on their turf and identifying who they are and what they can do for your business can go a long way to boosting engagement. If you are struggling to engage with your stakeholders because they lack the time, consider offering to shadow them for a day or two. This will allow you to get a real sense of their daily reality, providing you with valuable observations which you can then use to your advantage when seeking ways to improve relationships and add value.
5. Provide multiple ways for stakeholders to engage
If you’re serious about improving stakeholder engagement, you should be providing various ways for your stakeholders to engage with you. This will help to overcome any barriers there might be to engagement, making it as easy and accessible as possible for them.
Cover all bases and learn from what works. Online surveys can help to increase accessibility and garner valuable feedback, but, on the other hand, tone of voice and body language can’t be expressed through these. Some may prefer email communications but, if you don’t get a response this way, consider picking up the phone or arranging a face-to-face or video conference meeting.
Connecting with stakeholders in person can help to limit misunderstandings and ensure issues are resolved quickly and effectively. However, stakeholders may not always be available for in-person meetings due to location or time constraints, so it’s important to keep all communications channels open.
Wrap up
Following these five tips will help you improve stakeholder engagement. If one approach doesn’t work, be persistent and try something else. Doing so will help you build strong relationships and generate value for your business.
Find out how to successfully engage with your stakeholders with a CIPS Diploma in Procurement and Supply. To find out more about our CIPS courses, contact us or call our team on 01865 515255.