Creating stakeholder value by consistently aligning the support environment with stakeholder needs

A business organization should consistently meet the needs of its stakeholders. Any sub‐optimal position suggests that enhancement of business performance is possible in at least two areas: the effectiveness of the routes to achieving those stakeholder needs, and the efficiency of those routes. The support activities constitute an environment created by the integration and co‐ordination of people, processes and places. The challenge is to create the support environment that consistently meets the needs of the business, and then to manage it through the optimum use of resources. An organization that has created, sustained and managed a business‐aligned support environment is likely to have a competitive advantage over those that have not done so. If the author is able to confirm this assertion through his research, then the desired outcome would be a framework for achieving such alignment. This paper briefly describes the concept of Business Support Optimisation as an approach to improving such alignment at a moment in time, and suggests how it can be operationalised using value mapping to realise stakeholder expectations.