Stakeholder Analysis. Build a Stakeholder Influence Map for the pursuits that matter
Strategic Sales Support develops Stakeholder Influence Maps for major pursuits and strategic accounts. We identify every decision-maker, influencer, evaluator, gatekeeper and likely internal objector on the buyer's side, characterise their interests, and plan how the team engages each.
Who benefits.
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Complex pursuits with 8+ stakeholders.
Government, defence, major resources, buyers where the decision is made by a panel, not an individual.
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Public-sector and regulated buyers.
Procurement, technical evaluators, end users, finance, legal, all weight the decision differently.
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Strategic accounts you're trying to break into.
Named accounts where you've identified the opportunity but can't find the right path in.
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Pursuits against an incumbent.
Displacing a sitting supplier requires mapping not just decision-makers but also internal advocates and likely defenders of the status quo.
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Bid teams that 'know one person on the buyer side'.
When the team's confidence is built on a single contact, the bid is structurally fragile.
The patterns we see.
Bidding to whoever ran the RFP.
Response written for procurement, ignoring the technical evaluators and end users who actually score it.
Missed influencers.
Key influencers on the buyer side are invisible because the team has never engaged them, and won't, because no one mapped them.
Wrong-level conversations.
Sales team talks to managers; the decision sits with executives. Effort goes into the wrong altitude.
Single point of failure.
Entire pursuit relies on one buyer-side contact. They move roles, the pursuit collapses.
No view of internal objections.
Buyer has internal sceptics whose objections the response never addresses. The bid loses to internal politics, not on merit.
What changes.
Commercial outcomes, not activity outputs.
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Mapped buyer side.
Every named individual on the buyer side identified, with role, interests, influence and disposition documented.
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Engagement plan per stakeholder.
Who on your team engages whom, when, with what message. No more random outreach.
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Internal-objection awareness.
Likely internal objections to your proposal surfaced before submission so the response can address them directly.
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Resilience.
The pursuit isn't dependent on one buyer-side contact. Multiple relationships mean stability if anyone moves.
How an engagement runs.
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Research.
Public-domain research on the buyer organisation, panel members, executive team, recent procurement history.
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Interview.
Structured conversations with your team members who have any current buyer-side relationship. Capture everything they know.
- 3
Map.
Draft Stakeholder Influence Map: role, influence level, decision posture, known relationships, gaps to fill.
- 4
Plan.
Engagement plan per stakeholder. Who from your team owns each relationship, what the next conversation is, what evidence to share.
- 5
Track.
Living map updated through the pursuit. Used in bid drafting, capture meetings and red-team reviews.
Stakeholder Analysis, answered.
What is a Stakeholder Influence Map?
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Who needs stakeholder analysis?
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How long does it take to build?
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How do you research stakeholders ethically?
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How does the map get used in bidding?
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Right service. Right time.
Book a 30-minute call. We'll figure out if Stakeholder Analysis is the right fit, and if not, where to start instead.