Navigating the Political Minefield: Enterprise Stakeholder Management

Cross-departmental embedding means cross-departmental politics. Each stakeholder has different concerns. Here’s how to navigate them.

IT Leadership

Worries about: Security, compliance, architectural fit, shadow IT, loss of control

Your response: “We consolidate multiple point solutions into one governed platform. IT gets visibility and control they didn’t have before.”

Finance

Worries about: Cost justification, ROI clarity, budget allocation across departments

Your response: “The value isn’t in any single department—it’s in coordination efficiency. Here’s the cost of the handoff failures you’re solving.”

Individual Departments

Worry about: Loss of autonomy, forced workflow changes, more work from new systems

Your response: “You keep your workflows. You keep your ownership. You gain visibility you didn’t have. Nobody’s forcing you to change.”

Executives

Worry about: Time to value, change management burden, organizational resistance

Your response: “We’ll own one handoff first. Prove value in 90 days. Then expand. Incremental embedding that compounds.”

Read the full analysis on The Business Engineer.