How to Manage and Influence Internal Stakeholders?

For buyers, managing suppliers is only half the battle. The real challenge within businesses often lies within the office: internal stakeholders. Here are five tips for gaining buy-in for projects.

Influencing suppliers (or ‘external stakeholders’) for buyers is now a matter of routine. From negotiation to post-contractual management (supplier relationship management) buyers are accustomed to interacting with third-parties and aligning them to meet the business need.

Understand the stakeholder community

There is a wide stakeholder base that requires buyers understanding and analysis. As a first step, buyers must survey all individuals within the business that may hold an interest in a supplier project. Where a creative campaign is being held, for example, those within the marketing department should be included. Where the initiative involves some technological aspect, IT professionals are relevant.

Prioritizes needs of key stakeholders

Not all stakeholders are equal in importance or relevance for any given supply project. Senior individuals, for example, may have status but may lack the heft to influence final decisions. Spending excessive time trying to influence powerless staff wastes time. Buyers therefore need to priorities the needs of certain stakeholders.

Align objectives

Once the key stakeholders have been identified, buyers must look to engage them. This starts with meeting key stakeholders with an initial exploratory conversation to understand their goals within the business. Few are naturally aligned with the somewhat narrow objectives of procurement. Typically, buyers look to eradicate costs, whereas most other departments are tasked to spend. Simply understanding their KPIs is a good start, but the end-goal is to build a supplier project that directly speaks to these objectives as well as buyers’ own cost-cutting targets.

Speak their language

Procurement is full of useful phraseology that provides a handy short-cut to intelligent professionals in managing complex projects and ideas. However, to the outside world, this language represents unattractive jargon. Modifying the ways in which buyers express thoughts can be a surprisingly compelling way to create an interpersonal rapport with key stakeholders. Instead of encouraging marketing co-workers to create a tender, consider instead of asking suppliers ‘to pitch’ ideas.