What is Strategic Public Affairs - Internal Side of Public Affairs 70
- Mar 9
- 4 min read
By Alan Hardacre, PhD
Co-Founder Advocacy Academy, Advocacy Strategy
I am increasingly asked to help organisations make their Public Affairs teams more strategic. But what does that actually mean and how do you go about it? After years working both in-house and with clients, I have noticed something consistent: Senior leaders are not interested in activity. They are interested in impact. Preferably commercial impact.
If you work in Public Affairs, your value is not measured by:
The number of meetings you attend
The size of your stakeholder map
The number of policy briefings you produce
The events you organize
It is measured by whether you move outcomes leaders actually care about in a way that you can showcase to them.
I have written extensively about the GOST framework as a key component of internal success. Attached is another simple framework I often use to help people think about strategic outcomes, strategic questions and how to show up strategically.
It breaks strategic Public Affairs down into three practical questions:
What outcomes does the business actually care about?
What strategic questions help identify where policy matters most?
How should Public Affairs show up internally as a strategic advisor?
When you break it down this way, strategic Public Affairs becomes much easier to diagnose and improve.
1. Strategic Outcomes
The first slide shows a Strategic Public Affairs Outcomes Checklist.
The point is simple: Public Affairs must connect to outcomes senior leaders recognize and understand immediately. It helps you think about impact. Strategic Public Affairs can:
Protect revenue from regulatory risk
Unlock market access or procurement opportunities
Reduce compliance costs or operational burdens
Accelerate regulatory approvals or time-to-market
Strengthen license to operate
Create competitive advantage through standards or market rules
Secure supply chains or investment certainty
In other words: Public Affairs must connect to commercial outcomes – and ideally quantified. If you cannot explain the upside of your Public Affairs work in one sentence, it is unlikely to be strategic.
For example:
This engagement secures X by preventing Y.
This coalition protects $X in revenue by reducing regulatory risk.
This policy shift unlocks X months of faster market entry.
If it cannot be tied to a commercial, operational, or existential outcome, it is activity — not strategy.
2. Strategic Questions
The second slide lists the questions Public Affairs professionals should ask themselves. Before building engagement plans, strong PA teams ask:
Where does government policy most directly affect our ability to grow revenue?
Which upcoming policy decisions could reshape our industry?
Where is the business most exposed to regulatory or political risk?
Where could policy create competitive advantage?
Which commercial decisions depend on uncertain regulatory outcomes?
What are competitors doing to shape the policy environment?
Which policymakers ultimately determine our operating environment?
Where do we have credibility with policymakers — and where don’t we?
What political narratives could reshape regulation in our sector?
Are we shaping policy early enough — or reacting once decisions are already made?
These questions help identify where Public Affairs can genuinely move outcomes.
3. Business Questions
The third slide focuses on the questions Public Affairs should ask the business. Even the best Public Affairs strategy will fail if the organisation does not support it. Public Affairs professionals often design elegant engagement plans that fail for one simple reason: The business is not aligned behind them.
Strategic Public Affairs therefore requires asking the business the right questions:
What are the three most important things we must deliver over the next 3–5 years?
Which markets will drive the majority of our future growth?
What major investments or expansion plans are critical to that growth?
What external risks could realistically slow or block those plans?
Where do we face the toughest barriers to operating or expanding today?
Which industry changes could disrupt our business model?
If we could change one external factor to accelerate growth, what would it be?
Where do government decisions have the biggest impact on our business?
No internal adoption = no impact. Strategic Public Affairs is therefore not just about external persuasion - it is about internal alignment around where Public Affairs directly and tangibly contributes to the business.
4. How Strategic Public Affairs Shows Up
The final slide highlights how strategic Public Affairs professionals behave inside organisations. They do not simply track and report policy developments. They look to own the process, become a navigator and interpreter. They:
Translate policy developments into business impact
Bring policy insight into strategic planning early
Identify where policy can create competitive advantage
Anticipate regulatory risk before it becomes a crisis
Connect government engagement to commercial priorities
Equip senior leaders to engage effectively with policymakers
Turn policy developments into strategic options for the business
Demonstrate measurable business value from Public Affairs
These are the ways successful Public Affairs professionals show up.
From Operational to Strategic
When we talk about being strategic – the main difference I see is from more operational or analytical Public Affairs. Let me explain:
Operational Here is the stakeholder engagement plan / Here is the monthly policy tracker
Analytical Here is why this policy risk is emerging
Strategic If we invest here, we protect $X and strengthen our license to operate before the window closes
Senior leaders operate at the third level and if we want to be seen to be strategic and have an ability to shape decision in our organisations – we also need to operate there.
For me this is what strategic Public Affairs looks like.
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