What are stakeholders?

Stakeholder word in English that means "interested party or interested party" used within the business environment, to refer to all those organizations or people affected by the different decisions and activities of a company, which can have an economic, environmental and social impact on said groups.

In every economic entity or organization, in addition to its owners, various people or social groups participate such as clients, employees, suppliers, investors, shareholders, public entities, non-governmental organizations, unions, civil organizations, determined community and society in general, which in some way have an interest in its performance, because they are directly related or indirectly with her.

This term was introduced in 1984 by Edward Freeman in his book Strategic Management: A Stakeholder Approach, in which he argued that these stakeholders are an element that must be taken into account in the strategic planning of businesses of any company, since the success or failure of the company concerns and affects its owners, but in the same way it will affect the life of workers and their families, suppliers, competitors, customers and the community in general where it is located and works.

In simple terms, stakeholders They can be defined as all the social actors that can be affected either positively or negatively, due to the decisions, objectives and action plan of a company.

Types of stakeholders

There are two types of interest groups:

Primary:

Primary stakeholders are fundamental to the operations of an organization, this group includes all those who have some financial relationship with the organization, such as shareholders, workers, suppliers and customers.

Secondary:

Secondary stakeholders are all those groups that do not participate directly in some exchange with a certain company, but in some way they can be affected by the actions of it executes. In this category are: competing companies, the media and non-governmental organizations, among others.

Aspects that define stakeholders

Any company needs to have well-defined and established stakeholders, since they actually represent part of the target audience for the business communication, so it is important that you address each of them in particular with a message according to their needs and with an image defined.

To establish them, the following factors must be taken into account:

• Type of activity carried out by the company.
• Type of company you are dealing with.
• Geographical location and size of the company.
• Internal and external groups directly involved in the operations of the company.
• External groups involved or affected with the result of the company's operations.

In addition to being fundamental for the operation of any company, taking them into account benefits such as sustained growth, trust between the company and the stakeholders, greater application of social programs, obtaining strategic information necessary for the decision making, greater innovation of products and services, thanks to the feedback between the different groups involved.