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Case Study

 

Case Study: Centralizing Stakeholder Insights Across Two Countries

Eliminating Blind Spots and Demonstrating Value Across 20,000 Route-Miles

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Context
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CN Rail, a major freight railway transporting C$250 billion worth of goods annually across a 20,000 route-mile network spanning Canada and mid-America, has a public and government affairs team distributed in multiple offices in both countries.
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This team has frequent engagement with thousands of local, provincial, state, and federal officials from small-town mayors to high-ranking members of Congress and Ministers of Parliament.
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More than 98,000 communications annually and constantly changing stakeholders due to frequent elections.

Challenges

  • With no formal tracking system, the team relied on lengthy staff meetings to keep everyone informed about stakeholder conversations and relationships, creating blind spots and inefficiencies.
  • Without centralized records, it was difficult to maintain consistent, informed discussions with stakeholders over time and institutional knowledge when employees left.
  • Frequent elections meant constantly updating databases and managing high communication volumes manually, introducing error risk.
  • It was hard to quantify and share engagement efforts with CN leadership.
Challenges -building long term relationships

Solutions

 

Irth for Stakeholder Engagement software

 

 

 

 

 

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Key Benefits and Results

All team members can instantly access complete stakeholder contact information and engagement history, enabling more consistent and focused discussions.

Batch updates and smart comms cut down data entry time and reduce errors — critical when stakeholder managers juggle up to 500 contacts each.

GIS mapping shows members of Congress exactly what CN infrastructure exists within their district borders, enabling highly specific conversations.

Automated weekly reports allow the team to monitor relationships with the important stakeholders and address complex issues before they escalate.

Dashboards provide instant visibility into total annual communications, communications per category, communications by team, and trends over time.

 

‘‘CN continuously strives to be a good neighbor to the thousands of communities we operate in and through. At the heart of that effort is effective communication with our federal, provincial, state, and local stakeholders. For the last two years, Borealis (now Irth for Stakeholder Engagement) has been a critical tool in tracking and amplifying our varied communications. From tracking one-on-one engagements to organizing and managing broad issues and developing smart communications to large and diverse, yet targeted groups, CN has found Borealis to be an essential and invaluable tool.’’

David Woodruff, 

Assistant Vice President & Head of U.S. Public and Government Affairs at CN

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