By Alyssa Kaye Mojar-Pereira and Camille Midua

[Stakeholder engagement] is a critical pillar of our business that directly impacts our success.

Stakeholder Engagement (SE) is the process of building, enhancing, and protecting relationships to foster goodwill, support, and growth for both the business and the brand. It is a crucial approach for AboitizPower towards ensuring uninterrupted operations, gaining social acceptance, and developing advocates for the company and the brand.

To enhance and streamline its SE processes, the company developed its own stakeholder mapping dashboard called Project Web. The tool is designed to support the company's Relationship Champions in managing stakeholders, such as during unforeseen organizational changes, which may disrupt normal continuity of relationships.

With Project Web, the organization can ensure an organization-centric strategy to achieving SE business objectives, instead of the current person-centric approach. Sharing of information is more accessible to facilitate an agile and better decision-making and SE planning. Because of this, resources used in SEs can also be optimized.

Armed with the big idea, the team explored the best way to establish this stakeholder map. Early on, they have encountered challenges primarily due to the large number of stakeholders for the data gathering.

Another obstacle was that the group was also composed of non-tech savvy TMs with no background in coding or programming. This posed serious challenges in conceptualizing the solution that best fits the project's objectives.

The team was glad to accept all the possible help they could get. They joined the GT Hackathon to explore how they can make the idea come to life through the Google AppSheet. Through the design thinking workshop, they created pretotypes for Project Web. An initial app was created which included the basic functionalities that they need, but they wanted to have a more visual representation of the map. This is where they explored other options and found LookerStudio. They also enjoined their co-RSM TM, Rey Perez, to onboard them with how LookerStudio works. Luckily for the team, LookerStudio was a very good fit and it addressed the limitations that they faced with the initial design of Project Web.

“We’re glad with the development of Project Web after this breakthrough. We were also able to present this to the National Inyovation Day of the Thermal Group, where we got positive feedback from our leaders on how this innovation can help optimize our stakeholder engagements. After all, SE is not merely a procedural checkbox. It is a critical pillar of our business that directly impacts our success, allowing us to have uninterrupted operations, gain social acceptability, and develop advocates for our company and our brand,” shared Princess Awa, Therma Marine Technical Training Specialist who was RSM Operations Specialist while working on Project Web.

In today's dynamic and connected business world, success isn't just about profit margins or market share anymore. It's about how well we navigate complex systems, build meaningful and lasting relationships, and deliver value that goes beyond simple transactions. This is where stakeholder engagement really makes a difference. As we strive to shape the future of energy, it's crucial that we forge strong, lasting relationships with the people we aim to serve and create a better future for.

In a highly technical environment like ours, it's easy to think that innovation only happens in the barges and engine rooms. However, our experience with Project Web has shown us that there's ample room for innovation within the corporate services team, especially in reputation and stakeholder management.

This journey has taught us that true innovation can transform processes and drive meaningful change across all aspects of our organization.