Читать книгу Staying the Course as a CIO - Jonathan Mitchell - Страница 6

In its simplest sense, a stakeholder is a person, group or organisation that has interest or concern in an organisation (Business Dictionary, 2013). The days when people felt they needed to carry wooden poles around with them disappeared with the wizards of Middle Earth. Stakeholders also have nothing to do with vampires, though if you do unhappily have a vampire infestation on your hands, driving wooden sticks through the hearts of the un-dead while they sleep in their coffins is widely considered an effective pest control measure. These days life is much easier. Modern vampires tend to be good-looking teenagers with a conscience. It was never like that in Bela Lugosi's day.

“We don't vanquish vampires so don't call us stakeholders!”

Jackie Sadek

So while a few of our stakeholders may be brandishing wooden sticks, more often their weapon of choice is the pointed word. And you will find plenty of those out there – both words and people. There are of course, a wide range of different stakeholders who are affected by IT. In fact, pretty much everyone in the company, together with all your suppliers and customers, receive the delicate ministrations of your organisation in some form or other. Figure 1.1 shows some of the major stakeholders you will encounter. The strong arrows show the strong connections while the dotted arrows represent a looser stakeholder engagement. There may be some corporate outward-looking IT functions which have very intimate relations with customers and suppliers but for most of us, it is the Board of Directors and the leadership of the company, our beloved middle managers and the common or garden users who will demand most of the management time of an IT leader. We should look at each in turn.

Figure 1.1 The CIO's Major Stakeholders