Introduction
Stakeholder analysis involves the procedure taken by the management of any institution or company to revise policies and to consider whether the company values are in line with the expectations of the people that have an interest in the company according to ACERA (n.d)
This paper seeks to establish the plans and strategies the management of The Arsenal football club has to keep the stakeholders interested. In this paper is a slight introduction to the Gunners and its stakeholder mapping analysis.
Arsenal FC
They are also known as The Gunners. The football club was started in 1886 and 1893 in Holloway, North London. It was the first team to participate in football leagues. It mostly plays in the Premier League and has won so far, 13 First Division PL titles. To its name is also the achievement of winning 10 FA cups.
The team’s colors are red and white and it has undergone various transformations in the playing kits. The Gunners were declared world’s third richest football club worth over $ 1.2 billion as of 2009. It has a fan base of approximately 27 million fans globally (Undercover Tourist, 2010).
Stakeholder Mapping Analysis
Planning the process
This procedure has various steps in accomplishing for example the first step is planning the process of analysis. The Gunners management needs to have a reason for coming up with a mapping analysis. For example, the management, through this analysis, can be able to make policies that will make stakeholders have more interest in its activities. This could be an avenue to know the policies that have been formulated before that have not been successful and so could be revised or even done away with. This analysis is a way to keep in touch with the people that have stake in the team.
Selecting and defining a policy
Secondly, the managers then have to sit down, brainstorm and come up with policies that reflect the aims of the organization in improving the relationships with stakeholders. Some of those that the Arsenal FC has implemented include the Family policies. It allows a junior gunner to be accompanied to a match by two adults. The policy also has some restrictions for example the adult cannot use concession tickets. This policy seeks to encourage parents or guardians to accompany the juniors to their matches and at the same time provide an opportunity for them to watch other matches being played (Arsenal FC, 2010c).
They also have a women’s team, this aspect seeks to publicize them as being sensitive to gender and nurturing talent. Arsenal football club has to sit down and come up with attractive policies, packages that will be irresistible to the stakeholders. By portraying gender awareness, the range of stakeholders will increase considering that women will be included on board. This is especially important because it allows women to develop interest in soccer.
Identifying key stakeholders
The next stage is to figure out who the key stakeholders are. There are three types of stakeholders for any organization. The first type is the Primary stakeholders. These are stakeholders who, if anything happens to the football club or the team loses a match, are affected directly. In simple terms, all actions of the team affect them directly. The secondary stakeholder, which is the other category, comprises those who are not directly affected by the doings of the team though they get the impact somehow.
The third category is the key stakeholders. These could be either primary or secondary and the difference is that they have a say in important decisions in the club. The club must identify these individuals or organizations. For instance, the mayor of London, Boris Johnson who recently called on the public to support his campaign on backing the bid to have the 2018 world cup held in London. The mayor has a keen interest in football in general (Arsenal FC, 2010b).
Only those stakeholders that can affect the implementation of the policies should be identified and listed.
Adapting tools
The team can then use some instruments in getting information about the key stakeholders to assess how much power they possess in affecting decisions. This information could also reflect the stakeholder’s level of interest in the policy in question.
The trained team should find out the stakeholders essentials for example ID numbers and their posts in the organization. They should also find out their alliances with other organizations. They should find out how much the stakeholder knows about the policy and how much of it is true. After doing that they can then establish whether he/she is in support of the policy or not. This will in turn help determine the amount of resistance the policy will face if any.
For example if the captain decided that once injured no player can get back on the team, like Aaron Ramsey’s state at the moment. By administering questionnaires and holding interviews the management team will be able to gauge the stakeholders’ thoughts and the implications of the policy on the wellbeing of the team (Arsenal FC 2010a).
Collection and Recording
After the information has been collected, it is then analyzed, reviewed and put into a format that almost anyone can understand. At this point, it is advised that more interviews are done to increase the amount of secondary data in possession. It should be noted that the information should be retrieved from the stakeholders themselves and not their representatives. This is because the views of the stakeholder may not be accurately expressed by the representatives. If the stakeholder is completely busy or out of reach the interview can be done over the phone (Lovefilm, 2010).
Filling in the table and analysis
A stakeholders table is then filled out using the information gathered in the data collection process. The interviews are to be translated into tables. It is important that the individuals that participated in the interview process be the same ones to do this translation since they are familiar with the data. However, they should be warned not to interpret as they remember but as it was written down or recorded on tape. This could avoid cases of stakeholders’ opinions being tampered with and inaccurate interpretation (Ndegwa, n.d).
What the tables consist are columns representing different stakeholders and rows representing the other variables like position and power. Their opinions can be analyzed according to what they say in interviews, secondary information collected from other stakeholders in how they perceive them and information that is of interest about them.
After the information is tabled it has to be analyzed. Some of the questions that should be answered by this point are as follows. The researcher should be able to tell the dignitaries in the stakeholder’s list in relation to power and leadership. The information gathered should shed some light on how much and how accurate the information the stakeholders know is. From there, they should be able to interpret the stakeholders’ position on the decisions made about various policies. It should also highlight the pros and cons of the policy tabled. The alliances that the stakeholders may form should be clear by now (Fraser, 2004).
The information acquired can then help the policy makers on what decisions to take up and what not to. What offers to give and when to give them. This will be very simple since the analysis enables one to know the number of supporters of the policy and in relation to that, one will know the opponents. They will also know whether for both opposers and supporters, those that are from within the club and those that are external (Kammi, n.d).
When the interest data is analyzed, it gives the list of pros and cons that the policy makers strive to show the stakeholders. If the advantages and disadvantages posed by the shareholders sound ridiculous, it could be because they did not understand the policy. The various patterns of alliance formed could also be relevant.
After all these information has been sieved and put together, the information has to be assembled and put in s presentable to any lecturer.
Implementation
The task force behind data collection has to make sure the information gathered is in a state that the policy makers can execute. The information has definitely to reach the shareholders and so a presentation needs to be made by the members involved in the policymaking. The people that hold the presentation should be part of the task force that was involved in collecting the data for fluency. Two people can talk about the reforms while the rest sit to help respond to any questions that may arise during the presentation (Weber, 2009).
During the presentation, the presenters should seek to convert the opposers to supporters and the neutral to active supporters also. In so doing, they should not neglect the supporters but maintain their support. They should also seek to make inferior the power and leadership of those that oppose.
The above information was referred from strategies put forward by.
Conclusion
In conclusion, Arsenal football club has a lot to do in terms of mapping a stakeholder analysis. This paper has outlined the steps in the process of analyzing its stakeholders. For starters, a company has to have a plan; they should establish why they are undertaking the procedure. Then with the plan in place, they can come up with the policy. These policies are made after getting information from the various key stakeholders. The information is analyzed and put in a manner that the policy makers can interpret and make decisions or rather take action. The stakeholders must be on the same side, which is the work of the person that does the presentation (Weber, 2009).
Arsenal football club needs to put the above procedure into action to save their image that is falling at a very alarming rate. For the many recent games, they have been losing matches and so have they been losing viewership. This strategy will help them regain the trust of shareholders and fans alike. This will be the break they require to make a name for themselves and so they could look at it as the sent help from above or something to that effect.
List of References
ACERA. 2009. Project 0801, 200-. Web.
Arsenal FC., 2010a. Family enclosure policies. Web.
Arsenal FC., 2010b. Mayor calls on public to back London 2018 bid. Web.
Arsenal FC., 2010c. Supporters Consultative Forum, 2010. Web.
Fraser, A., 2004. Arsenal run ends at 49. Web.
Kammi ,S. n.d. Stakeholder analysis guideline, section 2. Web.
Lovefilm., 2010. Arsenal season review 2007/2008. Web.
Ndegwa, S. n.d., East Asia/Pacific Pilot Presentation. Web.
Undercover Tourist., 2010. Arsenal FC guide. Web.
Weber, A., 2009. Arsenal season review part 4+ the attack. Web.