Stakeholder engagement – Fosters, IAG, Toyota, Meat and Livestock Australia

As Warren Buffet, the American investor once said: ‘It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you’ll do things differently.’

For some companies and organisations, it takes a reputational crisis before they start to think about their stakeholders and how they engage with them.

Others see stakeholder engagement as an element of their risk management programs. Some identify stakeholder engagement as a foundation stone of sustainable competitiveness.

At Net Balance we’re still waiting for a call from Warren Buffet, but in the meantime, we do work with some of Australia’s biggest and best known businesses on their stakeholder engagement programs.

In recent months we have completed engagements for – among others – Foster’s, IAG, Toyota and Meat and Livestock Australia.

Each project we undertake is tailored to the needs of the client. Typically, we start by working with our client to identify and map their stakeholders and identify the issues that matter to them. We survey the stakeholders, canvassing their views on the material issues and identifying any additional ones. We use a range of channels to communicate with the stakeholders, including face-to-face meetings, telephone interviews and on-line surveys.

Finally, we report back to our client and advising them on how to use the information to refine business strategies and engagement processes and to inform their sustainability reporting.

Net Balance’s work in this field is based on the international stakeholder engagement standard AA1000 SES. Working with AccountAbility, the UK based organisation that developed the standard, we have run consultations with Australian businesses and government agencies on the first major revision of AA1000 SES.

For more information contact Mike Roberts mike@netbalance.com or Ross Wyatt ross@netbalance.com