Running a startup business is by no means a walk in the park. There are a lot of parts that you have to oversee and bring together. And that’s just within the confines of the company. You also have to deal with external entities that affect your business operations.
In all of this, a better corporate engagement strategy will help you accomplish the goal. Discover how you can develop that strategy and better connect with the different personalities and groups that make your business succeed.
Understanding What Corporate Engagement Exactly Is
In its simplest definition, corporate engagement refers to how a startup business like yours connects and interacts with its internal and external stakeholders. While this definition would suffice for the most part, there is actually more to it that you should know.
One important thing you need to understand here is that corporate engagement is not one-way. As much as you interact with stakeholders to influence their decisions, they also engage with you. That means they are also an influence on your decisions for the company. This continuous back and forth is vital for the ongoing evolution of your business.
A more strategic corporate engagement plan helps you better direct these interactions. With that, you can better fulfill different stakeholder desires while still bringing the business in your desired direction. It also helps build a stronger relationship between you and these stakeholders.
The Difference Between Corporate Engagement And Corporate Communications
Since they both revolve around interacting with different entities within and outside the company, you might wonder whether corporate engagement is the same as corporate communication. However, they have vastly different orientations. Corporate communications refer to the transfer and exchange of information between parties.
Meanwhile, corporate engagement encompasses the response of receiving parties to this information. That engagement involved interpreting that information and determining how to best react. It also involves the different receiving parties coming together to discuss how to handle the impact of this information.
Why Corporate Engagement Matters To Your Startup Business
To better implement your corporate engagement strategy, you need to understand what is in it, not just for you but also for everyone involved in the startup company. Here are some of the most prominent things this strategy can bring to your business.
Getting Stakeholder Voices Heard
Of course, you want to ensure that your various stakeholders can provide their input on business. But regular engagements might not be enough to cover all the sectors. Effective corporate engagement helps you resolve this by providing a methodical approach to enabling these discussions.
More Effective Company Performance
Studies have shown that companies with strong environmental, social, and governance practices outperform their competition. Here, corporate engagement is a crucial part of these practices. It assures all stakeholders that the startup company can fulfill its promise in these areas.
A Deeper Understanding Of Your Startup Company
To be sure of what they are getting to, outside investors would often want to know more about your startup company. Corporate engagement offers more than just giving them that information. Through it, these external investors and the public can better feel the management’s practices. That helps develop greater confidence in your system.
Dealing With Short-Termism
Short-termism refers to the tendency of investors to focus on immediate returns. That can impact on the longer-term outlook of your startup business significantly. Corporate engagement gives them an idea of what to expect from you beyond these immediate gains. That creates greater confidence. It also encourages all stakeholders to partake in making that vision a reality.
So, Where Should Your Startup Business Begin Corporate Engagement?
Some might think doing corporate engagement begins with reaching out to major investors. Others might argue that it is about connecting with customers. But as it turns out, that starts much closer to home: employee engagement.
By maintaining a strong bond with your team, you turn them into your biggest advocates. They also provide a stronger competitive edge since they are more invested in the business’s success. But it does come with some challenges. Most notably, you should provide employees with the right hook to get them to respond.
Defining Why You Engage
Overcoming this challenge begins with defining the reason why you engage. Remember that the reason would be different for each stakeholder you engage. For instance, employee engagement might be about highlighting how their work would benefit them and their families. Meanwhile, engaging investors might involve you in emphasizing the business side of things.
Once you have identified the engagement reason for each group of stakeholders, you need to bring everything together into a cohesive whole. The challenge here is that some of your engagement points in one area might not be compatible with others. For instance, employee concerns might not be in line with investor concerns. Your work then is bridging these to groups so that they can come together and reconcile these differences.
Creating A Collaborative Environment Within Your Startup Business
Beyond reconciling different perspectives, corporate engagement also requires creating a collaborative environment for all stakeholders. Your goal is to facilitate a free exchange of information and insights on the different issues that affect the business.
One essential element you should foster here is mutual respect from the different stakeholder groups. A way to build that respect is by highlighting the shared interest that everyone has in the success of your startup business. You should also emphasize that all different stakeholders are equal in value. Convey this idea through more than just talk and create policies that further reinforce this.
Encouraging Innovation
Corporate engagement isn’t just about dealing with the startup business as it is. You also want to use it to encourage innovation for the company’s future development. Flexibility is the key here. You should be ready to adjust your engagement tactics to match the changes occurring in and out of the business.
It is also vital to challenge the status quo. Stakeholders need to be vocal about the things the company can do to improve itself. And you as the head of the startup business should be ready to explore these new strategies.
Take Your startup Business Towards A new Direction Through Engagement
Corporate engagement isn’t just some fancy buzzword. For your startup business to get more out of it, you should make it an essential part of your company culture. So, take the first step and connect with the people that matter most to your business. We are ready to help you do more.