Typically, there are number of individuals or groups, who are affected by or are in some way accountable for outcomes and services. They may or may not be actively involved in the Service Delivery and the Service Management, but could be positively or negatively affected as a result of the services. These individuals and groups are known as stakeholders.

Therefore, it is important for the Engagement Manager to review the stakeholders involved, as identified during Sales, taking into account those already defined in the contract. From this, the stakeholder’s needs and expectations can be determined and appropriate plans can be established to manage and influence these during the life of Service Engagement to ensure overall success.

Specific attention needs to be given to those stakeholders on Client and Capgemini side that are to be involved during crises and disasters. These type of events can have a huge impact on the continuity of the business processes of the Client and must be managed accordingly.

A Stakeholders Map must be produced at the start of the Service Engagement, that includes:

• List of all relevant stakeholders and their involvement in service activities. This list shall partly be set with the Client who shall identify the key people on client side needed in eliciting, clarifying, supporting, reviewing and validating activities.
• Rationale for stakeholders involvement and ways to get commitments on their future involvement.
• Roles and responsibilities of the relevant stakeholders with respect to the Service Engagement.
• Relationships between stakeholders.
• Relative importance of the stakeholders to success of the Service Engagement.
• Resources (e.g. training, materials, time, and funding) needed to ensure stakeholders interaction.
• Schedule for phasing of stakeholders interaction.

Based on the type of relationship, a relationship model which includes relationship journey steps, key activities, responsibilities, risks to the relationship, opportunities at every step of journey and recommended behavior patterns, can be created for key stakeholders in the engagement.

The key stakeholders included are:

• Account, Delivery and Engagement Managers - The individuals responsible for the Service Engagement.
• Client and Client representatives - The organization and individuals that will use the delivered services. There may be multiple layers of client representatives. These could include teams that will support the services, employees that will use it, Client's Busines users, etc.
• External organizations - The subcontractor or vendor organizations whose employees are most directly involved delivering the services, such as suppliers, trainers/coaches, QA representatives, within or outside of the Service Engagement Team.
• Sponsors - The decision making individuals or group within the Client organization, which provide the financial resources in cash or in kind for the Service Engagement.

One of the ways of ensuring that the right stakeholders are identified is to use the 'Collect' step of 'Collect-Embed-Collaborate-Innovate' approach within the CLF foundation 'Voice Of Client'