Alice’s business
Alice’s business is a food business, and therefore she needs to engage various stakeholders before starting the business. In this case, the stakeholders will be the students, university staff, the three competitors, the government, and the health department. First, because engaging the stakeholders, Alice should understand the type of people she will be working with. Therefore, she needs to carry out market research based on her idea and gather the students’ thoughts and campus staff. The market research will help Alice know if the majority of the students and staff support such a café to offer services. Once she has the idea of the university staff and students’ thoughts, she can consult further for more elaboration.
Since the business is new, the stakeholders might need clarification of what Alice wants to start in the area. Therefore Alice can now consult the university management and the student board about their opinions about her new business in detail. The consultation should be done in meetings where she will be expected to meet the student board and university management to inform them about the new business’s details.
Alice will, at this point, explain the purpose of the business, and the scope of the business. This will ensure that all the main stakeholders of the business understand the nature of the business. This will help Alice get the feedback from the students and university management if they agree with new business and support her delivery of service to both students and the university’s staff. If the majority of the stakeholders support her new business, then she is welcomed to start her business.
Alice should convince the student board and the University management of how her business was better than others in terms of delivery of services. First, she should explain to them that the food will be delivered in the library, offices, and lecture hall to minimize time wastage among the university staff and the students. Also should explain to them that food will be prepared after an order is made and therefore she guarantees fresh and healthy food for the students and staff. These will help to convince the students and the university staff to accept the new business.
Alice should inform the student board that she will be offering part time job opportunities to the students while on Holliday to work as delivery persons. This will help the students earn income while on holiday and off classes, thus helping them pay for their school fees and accommodation on the campus. This will help Alice to earn trust among the students and the university staff. After gaining trust from the business’s main stakeholders, Alice will earn a good relationship with them. This means that she gets a social license to operate in the area since the community around has accepted her business.
The next stakeholder to engage is the government. All businesses operate under government licenses, and therefore Alice should engage the government offices associated with issuing licenses to new businesses. She should book a meeting with the company registrar and explain to her the nature of her business, its purpose, and the scope of the project. Once she has explained everything, she will be advised by the registrar on all the requirements that she needs to meet to get the license. This means that the government has accepted her business, and therefore she needs to meet the requirements so that she gets the business permit and the license.
Alice also needs to engage the three competitors to learn how they operate their businesses since they are in the same industry. By engaging the three cafes helps to build a good relationship with the competitors, and it might help in the future in case Alice’s business needs to relay on the competitors for its business to succeed since they are related businesses.
Alice also needs to engage the health department since her new business involves handling food, and therefore she needs to meet some health requirements. Therefore she has to set a meeting with health department officers to get advice and information about some of the requirements that she needs to meet. Once she has the information, Alice can meet all the requirements before starting to lease the premises and buying equipment that she will need.
Engaging all these stakeholders will be a great important to Alice’s business since the relationship between her new business and the stakeholders will be improved. The government agencies, university management, and the students will have a good relationship with the new business since Alice has approached them before starting the business.
Engaging the stakeholders paints a positive image of the new business to the public and improves the reputation of the new business. Visiting government offices and health offices shows that the company knows business ethics, and therefore it needs to meet all business requirements to start working. Thus the government will have a good relationship with the business since other businesses start without asking for a business permit. Some do not acquire business licenses and don’t meet the health requirements, which is against Australia’s business ethics.
Lastly, engaging the stakeholders of the business prevents Alice from incurring unnecessary costs or boycotts. The new business would suffer losses if Alice had leased the premises, employed workers, bought equipment, and developed the app before informing the main stakeholders. The university management could have declined Alice’s business to deliver food and drinks to the university offices and libraries. May the students would boycott the business if they were not engaged before setting up the business. The government agencies would have arrested and sued Alice and her business if she had started the business without engaging them to acquire a business license, health certificate, and business permit. All these would have led to losses, and therefore Alice’s plan to engage stakeholders would help her avoid unnecessary costs.
References
Institute, P. M. (2019). A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK(R) Guide-Sixth Edition. Chicago: Project Management Institute.
Water governance, stakeholder engagement, and sustainable water resources management. (2017). Place of publication not identified: MDPI AG.