Choosing Stakeholder Software: 22 Essential Evaluation Criteria Questions

Choosing stakeholder software is a technical process. But (funnily enough), it’s also very people-intensive. 

Finding your organization’s ‘best fit’ stakeholder software involves engaging with all the relevant stakeholders — the people who will be using it daily, maintaining it periodically, and paying for it annually. 

Each of these groups has specific and vested interests in helping choose the software that works best for them as well as for the organization as a whole. But what does ‘best fit’ mean? 

For Simply Stakeholders’ clients, it can mean:

• Implementing software and tools that streamline daily tasks and are easy for every team member to use 
• Having built-in communication tools to support engagement and maintain relationships
• Task tracking so no stakeholder or commitment falls through the cracks
• Centralizing all stakeholder data and information for smoother report generation.

It’s one thing to peruse a list of shiny, attractively priced stakeholder management features. But if the software doesn’t rise to your specific stakeholder relationship management (SRM) challenges, or is so complex that your team struggles to adopt it, then your SRM software becomes more of a headache than a solution.  

A thorough, strategic, and critical evaluation of your options should deliver an outcome that will save the organization time and money, and keep important relationships intact. 

Here are the 22 evaluation questions you should ask when choosing stakeholder software. 

Business and Strategic Questions

Implementing new stakeholder management software means starting a new working partnership between your organization and the vendor. Build a trust-based collaborative relationship from the get-go. 

These questions should prompt honest discussions about what your organization needs from this software and what your new partner must bring to the table.  

1. Does the software address the issues we’re facing with our current system?

2. What reviews do they have, and does the company have a good reputation?

3. Is the software being used by businesses and organizations similar to ours, and what ROI did they achieve?

4. Can this software be managed and maintained by our team? (And who in the organization will need to be involved?)

5. What are the contract options?

6. How simple is it to use, and what are the user adoption rates?

Security and Compliance Questions

Stakeholder management involves safeguarding sensitive information. And not everyone in an organization needs (or should have) access to that data. Security, permissions, and compliance must be part of your evaluation criteria. 

The SRM software you choose will be a third party to your organization or government department. These questions will help you better understand and assess the supply chain risk attached to that relationship.

7. Does the platform use secure data centres, and where are these hosted?

8. Is the platform compliant with international and local data and privacy regulations? (And what security compliance certificates and management systems does it have to support this?)

9. What data encryption is used? 

10. Is the data and the server backed up?

Scalability and Performance Questions

The functionality you need from your stakeholder software may change over time as your organization grows and evolves. So when choosing stakeholder software it’s helpful to think about future needs as well as immediate ones. 

11. Can the system handle growing amounts of work, user traffic, and data resources? (And are there any limitations?

12. Does the software company work collaboratively with clients to develop features?

13. Are there regular feature upgrades and bug fixes? 

Integration and Workflow Questions

Implementing a new SRM system doesn’t mean throwing out every process, function, tool, or workflow in your existing system. 

Deciding what should stay and what can go is part of the stakeholder software pre-implementation process. Making that call early in the process, when choosing stakeholder software, is helpful. It can trigger questions about integration capabilities, which may influence your final choice.

14. What native and third-party integrations are included?

15. Can we integrate existing tools and software into the new platform?

16. Which features will allow us to maintain existing workflows? 

17. How will choosing this stakeholder software ease friction for employees and improve stakeholder management?

18. Will it work in all the locations where we work? (I.e. Can it be accessed on site, across devices, and still capture stakeholder information when offline?)

Support and Implementation Questions

As choosing stakeholder software means entering a new partnership, it’s important to understand how the new software will be implemented, the timelines involved, and what user adoption and ongoing support you’ll receive. 

19. What technical support does the vendor offer? 

20. What is the setup and onboarding process? 

21. Is ongoing training provided?

22. How quickly and easily can I get support if something crashes?

Evaluating Your Stakeholder Software Shortlist

Any organization that limits itself to evaluating just one stakeholder management software option is potentially setting itself up for failure. 

We know from our stakeholder software case studies, for example, that Simply Stakeholders is rarely the only SRM software name on someone’s shortlist. Because a side-by-side comparison to clarify which option is the best fit is the wisest way to choose stakeholder software. 

If you’ve got a shortlist, you might create an evaluation framework or use a decision matrix to make it easier to choose the stakeholder software that’s right for your team. 

Use the information you gather for each platform and the answers to the questions to create a decision matrix.

Creating a Decision Matrix 

A decision matrix is an evaluation tool that makes it easier to compare multiple options. You could use the topics and questions discussed above as your evaluation criteria. Score each stakeholder software you’re considering against each criterion.

Depending on your needs, you might create:

• A simple decision matrix: Rate each option against evaluation criteria, giving them scores. Add up the scores at the end.
• A weighted decision matrix: Rank the evaluation criteria according to importance. Score the platform on each criterion, then multiply the criterion’s score by its weight. Add up each score at the end.

The score indicates which stakeholder software to choose for your team and the wider organization. 

All that’s left to do is contact the chosen software company so you can take the next step.

Simply Stakeholders: Why Clients Are Choosing Our Stakeholder Software

Choosing stakeholder software is rarely done on a whim. Local governments, energy companies, resource and mining organizations, and non-profit groups and communities have asked these 22 suggested questions, or others very similar. They chose to move forward with Simply Stakeholders only after having carefully evaluated multiple options. 

To pique your interest, the most popular features on our platform include:

• Stakeholder analysis and mapping
• Sentiment tracking
• Issues tracking
• Email integration
• Task management and collaborative tools
• Flexible categories and tags
• Detailed reporting and analytics
• A secure, data protected work environment. 

But we know features aren’t everything.

Our Customer Success team is widely appreciated and regularly commended for their proactive nature and professionalism during the onboarding process and when providing ongoing client support. 

Your Next Step

Simply Stakeholders Case Studies: Discover how organizations similar to yours are using our software.

Book a Personalized Demo: Let our team show you the features and tools in actions, and discuss how they can empower your stakeholder management.