Identifying Stakeholders for your CRM initiative

During the project initiation stage, focus on identifying, analyzing and managing stakeholders.

Here are some prompters for identifying stakeholders:

• Business Users, internal and external
• Sponsors, Business and IT
• Regulators; if you are in the pharmaceutical space for instance, watching out for the new regulations, stipulations and compliance requirements from the federal agencies.
• Partners – Distributors, Integrators, channel partners and those selling complementary products
• Suppliers to your company
• Competitors, more so if the system you are building could invite a competitor reaction, or if you are building a system before the competition gets to it

During the execution of the project, keep identifying newer ones; keep revising your understanding of the stakeholders and their needs. Keep communicating with them pro-actively.