Relationship Management Key Concepts
Purpose and scope
Relationship management is one of the 34 ITIL management practices and is classified as a general management practice. Its purpose is to establish and nurture the links between the organization and its stakeholders at strategic and tactical levels, and it includes the identification, analysis, monitoring and continual improvement of relationships with and between stakeholders.
Two phrases carry marks: nurture (relationships are maintained, not set up once) and with and between stakeholders (the practice also covers relationships among stakeholders, not only organization-to-stakeholder links).
Who counts as a stakeholder
A stakeholder is a person or organization with an interest or involvement in an organization, product, service, practice or other entity. Customers and users qualify, but so do sponsors, investors, regulators, employees, partners, suppliers and internal teams.
Boundaries with neighbouring practices
- Supplier management ensures suppliers and their performance are managed appropriately; it owns operational and tactical supplier relationships, while relationship management works at strategic and tactical levels across all stakeholder groups.
- Service level management negotiates and reports against agreed service levels; it measures provider output, not stakeholder perception.
- Relationship management is therefore broader than customer satisfaction measurement.
Core tools
- Stakeholder analysis with a power/interest grid (manage closely, keep satisfied, keep informed, monitor), stakeholder mapping, RACI, empathy and journey maps.
- Relationship segmentation: strategic, tactical and operational relationships, each with a named owner and agreed objectives.
Worked example
A regulator has high power but low day-to-day interest in delivery. Analysis places it in keep satisfied: periodic formal briefings, a named relationship owner, no operational noise. When interest rises after an incident, the analysis is re-run and the segment moves to manage closely.
Traps
Treating the practice as a survey programme; forgetting internal and partner stakeholders; quoting supplier management's purpose as this one; assuming an analysis is permanent.