Centralizing stakeholder data means bringing information from multiple sources into one secure, unified system. Instead of data being scattered across departments or stored in silos, a centralized approach ensures that everyone works with the same accurate, up-to-date information. This strengthens decision-making and simplifies governance, making it easier to maintain security and compliance. By improving data quality, streamlining collaboration, and boosting efficiency, centralization helps teams confidently manage stakeholder relationships. In this post, we'll share 11 benefits of centralizing your stakeholder data and why it matters for long-term success.
11 benefits of centralizing your stakeholder data
Keeping your data centralized in a platform like Stakeholder Relationship Management (SRM) software is a data management best practice with many benefits. To help you learn about these benefits, we've broken them into three categories, showing how centralized data helps you in the following areas:
- Clean and consistent data
- Easy data collation
- Better team collaboration
Clean and consistent data
Keeping your data clean and consistent means you have access to reliable data that's comprehensive, accurate, and reflects your project goals. Below, we've compiled four clean and consistent data benefits you can gain from keeping your data centralized in an SRM.
1. You're looking at the most up-to-date information
By centralizing your data, you don't have to worry about people making a new version of the same spreadsheet, editing their copy, and saving it to their own computer. Instead, with an SRM, once data is logged, you can access it in real-time and be confident that you're reviewing all of the records and the most up-to-date information.
For example, if you're using an SRM like Jambo, when somebody updates a phone number, you can see the changes as soon as they're made, along with the name of the person who made the changes, so if you have any questions, you know who to contact.
2. Helps you log data consistently
When setting up your SRM, try to create a guideline for logging and formatting data and stick to it (e.g., creating account-level tags, naming conventions, and utilizing similar fields). Doing this will help keep all your information uniformly organized. This way, no matter who creates a new record, if they follow the formatting guidelines, the information will be logged consistently, and your reports will be cohesive.
3. Create consistent reports to meet various needs
When all your data is centralized and organized, it's easy to pull consistent information, whether you're putting together an annual report for your shareholders or a monthly team meeting report. You don't have to search through emails, folders, or calendars for the information you need for your various reports, as it's all clean, consistent, and available within one platform.
In Jambo, you can create a saved report and use it as a template for your team. This feature allows you to make consistent reports, even if the same person is not running them every time.
4. Dive into further data analysis
Suppose you want to do more data analysis with other analytic tools. In that case, you can pull all your data from your centralized platform into one consistent format and add it to other systems for analysis.
Depending on your SRM, you can use the platform's robust reporting features to analyze your data closely and extract essential insights.
Easy data collation
Data collation is about arranging and categorizing your data and is a crucial step towards understanding your stakeholders and project(s). Below, we've compiled four benefits related to data collation you can gain from centralizing your data.
1. Bring your data together so you can understand it better
Instead of logging data in multiple systems or digging through documents, you can pull everything you need from one platform and be confident that you've got all the data points you need.
Whether you run comprehensive reports or view dashboard overviews in your SRM, you can access important updates and all the insights you'll need to understand your data and see what's happening in your project(s).
2. Helps you understand the themes, trends, and commonalities across your project(s)
With all your information in one platform, you can pull data related to relevant themes, trends, and topics. Suppose you want to find all the data related to a specific attribute of a communication record, contact, or issue. In that case, you can easily find what you need to help understand emerging trends or areas of interest in your data.
For example, you want to pull all issues your stakeholders have raised related to noise. With your data centralized, it's easy to run a report on all the data across your projects to help you understand what your stakeholders have shared about noise issues.
3. Enables you to learn about your stakeholders
With everything accessible in an SRM, you'll have complete visibility into your stakeholder data, including:
- Who your stakeholders are
- How to contact them
- What your stakeholders are saying about your project and your organization
- What issues have your stakeholders raised
- How you and your team have managed the issues
- How your stakeholders responded to your efforts
With access to all this data in one place, you can effortlessly search for relevant updates or make connections within the platform to help you learn more about your stakeholders' unique perspectives.
4. Empowers you to build trust with your stakeholders
When all your project information is available and stored in one platform, you can come to your stakeholder meetings and engagements informed and prepared. This awareness and preparation help decrease the risk of engagement fatigue because you're not overloading your stakeholders with unnecessary questions or repeated conversations.
With easy access to all your centralized data, you can focus on gathering the information you need and learning what's important to your stakeholders, increasing their trust in you and your organization.
Better team collaboration
When you collaborate with your team members, share information, and learn from their efforts, you can work more efficiently towards your project's goals. Below are three benefits related to team collaboration you can gain from centralizing your data.
1. Monitor progress and understand what your team is working on
With everyone logging their data in the same platform, you can better plan and collaborate across teams. You can see what's been done, what people are working on, and any gaps to be addressed. It makes it easy if you've got people working on various parts of the project, as you can see what tasks they've completed, their approach, messaging, and what issues came up for them.
This is especially helpful for other team members who might be joining the project for a different phase because the knowledge and information from the earlier phase(s) is available to them in one spot. It can save you time and avoid the risk of leaving out a key piece of information when you're bringing someone up to speed.
2. Boosts teamwork while lowering the chances of duplicate entries
When you open a record in Jambo, you can see if other people are working on the same record, as their avatar (profile picture) will be visible at the top right of the record. This helps lower the risk of duplicate work, as you can see what other team members are doing.
Jambo's 'Recent Changes' feature also lets you see when someone on your team has made changes or updates. This encourages people to connect with team members if they need more information, additional context, or help with tasks.
3. Facilitates team collaboration, whether you're in-person, remote or in-the-field
With a cloud-based SRM like Jambo, you can access the platform wherever you're working (as long as there's an internet connection). Everyone can work together from their location to ensure that essential data is captured and shared within your organization.
Discover four ways Stakeholder Relationship Management Software can help you improve teamwork→
Are you ready to centralize your data with an SRM?
If you're ready to benefit from centralizing your stakeholder and engagement data, then it's time to learn about the SRM options available. To help you with your research, we've created this free checklist of features you'll want to consider when choosing an SRM. Grab your copy below!
