WMBA 6627 Week 3 Power Interest Grid Analysis Example

Placing Twelve Parties on One Book's Power and Interest Grid: Why the Acquired-Office Principals Sit Top Right, the Errors and Omissions Insurer Sits Top Left and Two Placements Surprised Me

Student Name

Walden University

WMBA 6627: Stakeholder Management and Organizational Behavior

Instructor Name

Month Day, Year

Placing Twelve Parties on One Book's Power and Interest Grid: Why the Acquired-Office Principals Sit Top Right, the Errors and Omissions Insurer Sits Top Left and Two Placements Surprised Me

Defining the Axes

This grid places twelve parties from the stakeholder register for One Book, Harbor Point's effort to put all eleven offices' client files on a single agency platform. The grid has two axes, as in the power and interest approach that Ackermann and Eden (2011) describe.

Influence, on the vertical axis, means the ability to change One Book's outcome before the December 2027 deadline: to stop or delay migration, alter its scope or change its cost. High influence means a party could do so alone; low means it could only add friction. Interest, on the horizontal axis, means how much the party's money, work or standing changes because of One Book. High interest means a direct and visible change; low means the party would notice only if something went wrong.

The Grid

Table 1

Power and Interest Grid for One Book

Numbers match the stakeholder register; the firm and parties are composite.

High Influence, High Interest: Manage Closely

S03, the principals of the six acquired offices, are the decisive group. Each controls an office's client relationships and its staff's daily priorities, and the Week 1 case showed one of them stalling migration of 412 commercial accounts simply by not sending a file. Their interest is high because One Book weakens their personal hold on the books they built and sold.

S05, commercial producers, earn commission on accounts they bring in and keep. They can keep accounts off the system by servicing them informally, and their interest is high because shared records let others see and approach their clients.

S19, former owners with earn-outs, overlap with S03 but deserve their own place. Their remaining payments depend on their office's revenue, and they worry that service centers will attribute revenue elsewhere. Their influence comes from contracts: a dispute over earn-out calculations would delay the project and involve lawyers.

S02, the chief executive, sponsors One Book and can set and enforce deadlines. Her interest is high because the integration is central to the firm's plan for a sale.

High Influence, Low Interest: Keep Satisfied

S01, the private equity owner, has the most influence of all: it funds the project and could cut it. Its interest in the details is low; it cares about margins and the sale. It belongs here rather than top right because it acts through the chief executive and will intervene only if results disappoint.

S12, the insurance carriers, appoint Harbor Point to sell their products and pay its commissions. They do not care which system the agency uses, but a migration that produces policy errors or missed renewals could lead a carrier to restrict quoting access, which would hurt immediately.

S17, the errors and omissions insurer, was the first surprise. It has no interest in One Book until a renewal is missed and a client sues. Then it can raise the agency's premium or add exclusions at the next renewal. That influence is real and fast, which places it high on the vertical axis despite its indifference.

Low Influence, High Interest: Keep Informed

S07, account managers in the offices, have high interest: their daily work and possibly their jobs change. Their influence on the outcome is low individually, though as a group they can slow adoption through workarounds. They need regular, honest information about what changes and what does not.

S08, the service center managers, gain the most from One Book and want it to succeed. Their influence is limited to proving that the centers serve clients well, which makes them important sources of early evidence.

S13, commercial clients, were the second surprise. I first placed them high on influence because they can leave. On reflection, very few clients will leave over a back-office change, and their interest is high only where their account manager changes. They sit bottom right, with a note that any client complaint about service should be treated as an early warning.

Low Influence, Low Interest: Monitor

S18, state regulators, and S16, the premium finance company, are unlikely to engage unless something goes wrong. The licensing manager will track any routing of accounts to unlicensed staff, which is the one way regulators could become involved.

Placements I Am Least Sure Of

Two placements could reasonably be argued the other way. The chief executive could sit lower on influence than shown: although she sponsors One Book, she depends on the acquired-office principals for a large share of the firm's revenue, and she has so far been reluctant to set deadlines they dislike. Her formal authority is high; her practical willingness to use it is untested. The account managers could also sit higher. Individually they cannot stop the project, but if several senior account managers in one office resigned, the office's clients would follow them, and that would change the principal's position overnight. I have kept both placements but flagged them for review after the first commercial migrations, when both will have been tested.

What the Grid Suggests

The top-right quadrant is crowded with internal parties whose interests run against One Book's design. Bryson (2004) argued that stakeholder analysis is most useful when it shapes action, not when it produces a picture. Here, the action is clear: the project's success depends less on the system than on the acquired-office principals, producers and former owners. Mitchell et al. (1997) would add that their legitimacy, as former owners and revenue producers, makes their claims hard to dismiss, which is why the engagement plan must address their interests rather than override them. I will redraw the grid after the first commercial migrations, since several placements rest on behavior not yet observed, and any party that changes quadrant will get a revised line in the engagement plan.

References

Ackermann, F., & Eden, C. (2011). Strategic management of stakeholders: Theory and practice. Long Range Planning, 44(3), 179-196. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lrp.2010.08.001

Bryson, J. M. (2004). What to do when stakeholders matter: Stakeholder identification and analysis techniques. Public Management Review, 6(1), 21-53. https://doi.org/10.1080/14719030410001675722

Mitchell, R. K., Agle, B. R., & Wood, D. J. (1997). Toward a theory of stakeholder identification and salience: Defining the principle of who and what really counts. Academy of Management Review, 22(4), 853-886. https://doi.org/10.5465/amr.1997.9711022105