Vodafone has more than 180m customers, 95,000 base stations and 5,000 stores across five continents. This gives an indication to the size and scale of our organisation and therefore the influence that we have across millions of stakeholders, whose interests cross a range of issues including socio-economic benefits, network rollout and environmental impact.
Sound relationships with different stakeholders, such as NGOs, government and community organisations and investors are key to business success. In order to achieve this it is important to focus on problem solving, to establish mechanisms to listen and understand stakeholders’ concerns, to be aware of cultural differences and to engage in a number of different ways, depending on the situation.
We work primarily either at a country level or by issue. At a country level, we use stakeholder panels and for some general issues, such as understanding the socio-economic impact of mobiles. This form or national engagement is supported by a toolkit developed by Vodafone.
Vodafone Albania’s stakeholder panel
Vodafone Albania established an opinion leader panel in May 2005 to create and strengthen relationships with key stakeholders. This was the first such initiative for a Vodafone operating company and for the growing Albanian business community.
The panel consists of 25 opinion leaders from 20 civil society, academic and government organisations. Members were selected for their direct influence on CR issues – for example the Public Health Institute plays a key role in the debate on Radio Frequencies (RF) fields and health. The panel meets quarterly and reviews a different aspect of the company’s CR programmes.. During 2005/06 it looked at issues around RF and health, the environmental impact of mobile communications, and social investment. As the panel becomes more established, its members will help to decide the agenda for future meetings.
Global engagement on supply chain
Following a risk assessment we developed a Code of Ethical Purchasing, based on substantial engagement with employees, suppliers, investors and NGOs. We shared a draft of the code with 21 global suppliers at a special CR workshop early in 2003. We also shared our draft code and received feedback from NGOs and investors. The code is now embedded in our mainstream supply chain processes. This shows how a global consultation influenced a now global practice.
Engagement Challenges:
Engagement often involves a small number of people/organizations. This can provide high-quality dialogue. But sometimes the small number of participants can also result in misleading messages which may not be representative of the wider stakeholder group.
Identifying relevant stakeholders can be hampered by a “silent majority” syndrome. Those who make their presence felt the most – and are therefore easily identifiable – may not be the most significant stakeholders. On the other hand, it may be difficult to identify important stakeholders who do not register their concerns
It is not always possible to engage with the most relevant stakeholders even when we can identify them accurately. In some cases, people or organisations that are highly critical may refuse to join in the process. The consequence of this is that those we do engage with may not provide a balanced view.
Engagement takes time and costs money. Business imperatives mean we must be able to justify such investment by aiming for outcomes which are useful for the business. This may make it difficult to satisfy the accountability objectives of engagement particularly if dialogue does not help us address issues and solve problems.
Engagement also requires investment by stakeholders, many of whom have very limited resources. “Stakeholder fatigue” may limit the ability of some people to become involved in the process
We welcome feedback on this topic. Our CR dialogues are available on line at www.vodafone.com/responsibility/dialogues and are intended to develop thinking on the material issues from our CR report.
We will only achieve our aim with these publications if we provoke responses.
Please send your comments, opinions or ideas to: responsibility@vodafone.com
Dr Charlotte Grezo is Trustee of the Vodafone Group Foundation and Vodafone Group’s Director of Corporate Responsibility. Grezo joined Vodafone in January 2001 from BP, where she was Director of Global Environmental Issues.
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