Rolls Royce Corporation Case

The problem facing Rolls Royce is managing its stakeholders. Being able to identify who they are, what their interest is and how much power they will have will be the key to resolving their problem. I think you first have to put a risk value on each one of them using a 1 to 5 scale with one being low risk and five being high. Once you establish the risk of doing business with each one of them you can then proceed with a stakeholder analysis.

So let's identify Rolls Royce's Stakeholders. Among the company's biggest stakeholders are its direct customer's, the commercial airframe manufacturers (Boeing and Airbus), as well as defense contractors. Rolls-Royce also must work closely with national governments who subsidize their airlines by resorting to creative financing, long-term contracts, or asset-based trading deals. Rolls-Royce's other key stakeholders are its labor force, which must be highly trained, suppliers of parts and equipment, and so forth. Each of these stakeholders presents a different situation. So how do we analyze each of these stakeholders and create a strategy for addressing their concerns. We analyze them. First you can create a stakeholder profile for each of the stakeholders which will help you Identify their role, find out their perceived expectations and goals in relation to the project, find out the level of importance to the stakeholder for the success of the project as well as their potential negative impact on the project. I believe this is a key step in creating that strategy. After you have profiled all of your stakeholders you can then utilize an Influence/Interest Map. This is where you map out the potential impact each stakeholder may have on the project. In the case of Rolls Royce the map would look similar to what is described in the Illustration.

Based on the influence and interest analysis and chart below, stakeholders D & E will require minimal management effort as they would reside in the lower left quadrant of the matrix. Stakeholder F, which would be in the upper left quadrant, must be kept satisfied by ensuring concerns and questions are addressed adequately. Stakeholder A, B & C, would be in the mid to upper right quadrant, and must be kept informed through frequent communication on project status and progress as well as be involved in all levels of project planning and change management.

Key Organization Power (1-5) Interest (1-5)

A Customers 3 5

B Governments 3 5

C Defense Contractor 3 5

D Labor Force 1 4

E Suppliers 1 3

F Rolls Royce 5 5

So how do we manage our stakeholders? We decide who needs the most attention. In general, the people who use this model would say that you should expend most of your energy on the people who can be most helpful, i.e., those with the most power. Powerful people with the highest interest are most important, followed by those with power and less interest. We can categorize them into four groups. The first is the promoters - the high influence/high interest folks - are the most important here. They're the ones who can really make the effort go, and they care about and are invested in the issue. If they're positive, they need to be cultivated and involved. The second are the latents - high influence/low interest. These are people and organizations largely unaffected by the effort that could potentially be extremely helpful, if they could be convinced that the effort is important either to their own self-interest or to the greater good. You have to approach and inform them, and to keep contact with them over time. Offer them opportunities to weigh in on issues relating to the effort, and demonstrate to them how the effort will have a positive effect on issues and populations they're concerned with. If you can shift them over to the promoter category, you've gained valuable

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