ISSUES around stakeholders' engagement were the fulcrum of discourse at the 8th NCCI roundtable in Lagos recently with the Corporate Affairs Manager of Nestle Nigeria, Dr Samuel Adenekan as lead discussant.The forum also attracted contributions from other speakers as they outlined other methods that could foster mutual relationship between an organization and its stakeholders.The lead discussant, Adenekan, in his presentation, maintained that to fully and appreciatively engage the stakeholders, identifying the stakeholders is the first step. He also argued that stakeholder changes depending on the situation and purpose of engagement. He defined stakeholder engagement as any activity undertaken to create opportunities for dialogue between an organization and one or more of its stakeholders with the aim of providing informed bases for the organisation's decisions.In trying to expatiate how stakeholders' engagement should be done, he drew examples from what his company has done in engaging with its various stakeholders.He however maintained that stakeholders' engagement, at all times, should be interactive and provide opportunities for stakeholders' views to be heard as it is about dialoguing with them.He listed key elements of successful stakeholders' engagement to include purpose of engagement being clearly stated and understood; stakeholders' interest identified; the relationship of interest between both parties being important and direct and the stakeholders having the necessary information and understanding to make their decisions.Continuing, Adenekan said, 'In Nigeria, we need to do a lot more about engaging the critical target audience, particularly those that are very relevant to operations and programmes. For Nestle, we have identified three key areas where we really want to engage the local communities, the areas of nutrition, water and rural development because these are the areas we can better optimize value between society and the business.'Of course, as leading nutrition, health and wellness company and because we identified with the local people, we really want to create value in these key areas, particularly with the small holder farmers. We have the cassava starch project, which is going to increase the quality of starch, and make cassava available for production and the larger society.'According to him, to fully engage the stakeholders, it must be across areas of operation and across strategies, as the stakeholders can change from time to time, depending on the goal, vision and mission of the company.This, he said, is why an organisation needs to revive its operation from time to time in line with the stakeholders' interest.Commenting on the practice of Public Relations in Nigeria, he said it is still evolving and there is a long way to go.A participant at the seminar, Mr. Victor Anyaegbudike, a staff of one of the multinational oil companies, said the roundtable was very instructive, educative, and a wonderful avenue for PR practitioners to come together and brain storm on way forward in the profession.According to the Chief Promoter of the project, former Chairman of the Nigerian Institute of Public Relations (NIPR), Lagos State chapter, Mrs. Nkechi Ali-Balogun, the seminar was conceived because a very big gap was recognized in the profession especially skills gap.With the roundtable platform, she believed, the capacity of practitioners could be enhanced, while the PR industry would become the ultimate beneficiary.
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