What Is A Stakeholder? Definitions, Types & Examples

What Is A Stakeholder? Definitions, Types & Examples


Stakeholders are important to every project, but what is a stakeholder? There's more than one answer to that question. A stakeholder is either an individual, group or organization that's impacted by the outcome of a project or a business venture, and can be within or outside the organization that's sponsoring the project. They can have a positive or negative influence on the project with their decisions, and are also critical or key stakeholders, whose support is needed for the project to exist. Stakeholders can be anyone with influence or anyone who can be influenced by the project, and all stakeholders can be broken into two groups: internal stakeholders and external stakeholders.

Free stakeholder templates can help with stakeholder management. Internal stakeholders are those within the organization who are directly impacted by the project, while external stakeholders are outside of the organization and are indirectly impacted by it. These stakeholders can include employees, owners, the board of directors, project managers, investors and more. External stakeholders can be suppliers, customers, creditors, clients, intermediaries, competitors, society, government and more. There are many types of stakeholders, many of which fall under the internal or external stakeholder categories, such as investors, employees, customers, suppliers, vendors, communities, and government. A stakeholder is a person, like any other member of the project, and some will be easier to manage than others, so it is important to learn to deal with a variety of personalities and have a productive dialogue to know the project goals.