Simply Stakeholders vs Open Point Consultation Manager

What “More Than a System of Record” Looks Like in Practice

Portfolio-wide stakeholder view. A common complaint we hear from users of Open Point Consultation Manager is that their data is a mess, lots of duplicates, missing key fields that make it impossible to get accurate reporting on a project or across a portfolio. A structured database like Simply Stakeholders gives you flexibility for your data to be organised at a project level but also accessible at a portfolio level. And automated duplicate merging and the ability to set mandatory fields prevents the consultation manager-style data chaos.

Commitment register with teeth. Every promise made to a stakeholder becomes a tracked obligation with an owner, a due date, evidence of completion, and visibility to the people accountable for the project’s social licence.

Relationship health, surfaced. Sentiment, interaction frequency, unresolved issues, and commitment slippage roll up into a relationship health view your executives can actually read.

Knowledge that survives staff turnover. When a project manager rotates, the relationship intelligence stays. The next person inherits the context, not just the contact list.

Cross-project pattern detection. When the same concern surfaces from three different community groups across two projects, your leadership sees it as a pattern — not as three separate complaints in three separate logs.

Evidence-grade reporting for regulators and boards. The same data that runs your internal intelligence produces the audit trail your EIS, IFC Performance Standards alignment, or regulatory submission requires.

Built for infrastructure realities. Native Title, IBA obligations, council coordination, corridor stakeholder fragmentation, multi-phase approval pathways – the workflows are designed for the work, not adapted from generic CRM.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Open Point the same as Consultation Manager?

Open Point is the rebranded name for the platform previously known as Consultation Manager. The underlying product heritage is consultation activity logging for project-based engagement.

How is Simply Stakeholders different from Consultation Manager / Open Point?

Open Point is oriented around recording consultation activities on a project, often by a call centre team. Simply Stakeholders is oriented around managing the stakeholder relationship across every project, phase and team change. The difference is system of record versus system of intelligence.

Is Simply Stakeholders only for large infrastructure organisations?

No. Simply Stakeholders is used by infrastructure organisations of varying sizes, from single-project renewable developers to multi-corridor transport authorities and portfolio mining operators. The common factor is that relationships matter beyond a single consultation window.

Can Simply Stakeholders meet the same compliance and EIS evidence requirements?

Yes. Simply Stakeholders produces evidence-grade audit trails for regulatory submission, EIS documentation, and frameworks including IFC Performance Standards and the Equator Principles. Compliance evidence is a baseline, not the ceiling.

How long does migration from Open Point take?

Migration timelines depend on data volume, the number of historical projects, and how stakeholder records have been structured (how much data clean up is required). A scoping conversation typically takes 30 minutes and produces a realistic timeline. We generally plan on a 2-4 week period for migrating historical data, including restructuring and cleaning the data, re-organising it into a new data structure, and testing the migrated data.

Can both project teams and executives use the platform?

Yes — and they see different views of the same data. Engagement officers work in detailed stakeholder profiles. Project managers work in commitments and issues. Executives see relationship health and portfolio-wide intelligence. One platform, three lenses.

Is Simply Stakeholders Australian-built?

Yes. Simply Stakeholders is built for the regulatory, cultural and project structures of Australian infrastructure work, including Native Title, IBA obligations, council coordination, and the realities of long-cycle approval pathways. Although created in Australia, Simply Stakeholders services a global market with customers in North America, South America, Asia, Europe and Africa.