Creating a Stakeholder Map

Stakeholders play a crucial role in achieving strategic goals and initiatives by contributing their expertise and perspectives to the strategy and plan, ensuring alignment with the organization's objectives. The stakeholder matrix is divided into four quadrants, with the Degree of Involvement on the x-axis and the Degree of Impact on the y-axis. Each axis can be categorized as high, medium, or low to determine stakeholder placement within the matrix. For instance, key players, who have both high impact and high involvement, are expected to be pivotal in the process.

When category managers submit their strategy and plan documents for approval, the documents are initially routed to the stakeholders designated in Level 1 approvers. If all assigned Level 1 approvers endorse the strategy plan, the documents are then forewarded to the category strategy approver for final approval. In this simulation, you’ll assume the role of Alex Reed, the lead category manager. Alex identifies stakeholders, level 1 approvers, and their roles within this category. ​

Alex has been assigned the task of adding the Marketing Lead, Divya Babu as a key stakeholder in the stakeholder map.

In this lesson, you learned how to create and manage a stakeholder map. Key takeaways include:

• The stakeholder matrix categorizes individuals into four quadrants based on their degree of involvement and impact.
• Key players are stakeholders with high impact and high involvement who are pivotal to the strategy process.
• The approval workflow requires endorsement from Level 1 approvers before the strategy plan is forwarded to the category strategy approver.
• Category managers are responsible for identifying stakeholders and assigning their specific roles within the category strategy.