I am currently studying Marketing for Stakeholders, as part of my Chartered Institute of Marketing Professional Certificate in Marketing.

What is a Stakeholder? Freeman (1984) defines is:

Any group or individual who can affect or is affected by the achievement of the organisation’s objectives.

Stakeholders can be shareholders; employees; customers; creditors; distributors and suppliers (to name but a few). Management must strive to meet the needs of all of these people, even though they all have different expectations.

Employees can be a difficult topic, especially in this current economic climate, but today I heard of an excellent example of keeping a stakeholder happy.

My daughter works for a large multi-national corporation in London and she was going straight to a Ball from work. The weather is boiling and she wasn’t looking forward to the tube travel in her posh frock. So her manager organised (and paid) a taxi to take her door to door after work. Wow – did that make her feel special.

In reality it was a small financial outlay from a large corporation and she does work long hours for them, but it sent her a message that she is a valued member of staff. Very good.

Freeman, R.E. (1984) Strategic Management: A stakeholder approach, Boston: Pitman.