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The quality – even the existence – of strategic key account plans is patchy even in some of the most forward-looking organisations. Why is that? After all, these are the principal instruments through which key account managers secure the resources they need from their own organisation and the commitment to future business from the customer.…
Any organisation needs to take much the same actions to develop and establish key account management as any other. A ‘rough and ready’ assessment from internal sources can show far the company has progressed along the KAM transitioning curve, by identifying which essential actions for KAM development have been taken, and to what extent. Valuable…
Ask six people what KAM is and you’ll probably get six different answers, albeit with some common threads and themes. In contrast, AKAM is clear about what Key Account Management is, what a key account is, and what a key account manager is. This statement also identifies critical elements of KAM which means you can see when and where it is really happening,…
Rainer Schroeder, Global Account Manager ABB Semiconductors (based in Germany), insisted that a ‘lone wolf’ approach to the KAM job is bound to fail in a complex environment. The Global Account Manager, as director of the orchestra, must be able to form a virtual team to work with him/her and be very specific on the contribution and…
Alistair Taylor‘s session on account team effectiveness, particularly hit a nerve. There are still companies attempting KAM without supporting their key account managers (and therefore their key accounts) without a multi-function team in place, and thereby seriously compromising their chances of success. Such teams are generally led by key account managers (and arguably should be led…
How much have you really changed your thinking around and approach to your key customers? Is it still fundamentally the same, an intense glare from Sales that goes no further along the value chain and fails to involve other managers in either organisation? Are you actually developing value for your customer as well as your company – because you will get…
KAM means launching a transformation program to change behaviors, capabilities and priorities across most functions. So what perspectives and frameworks would be most helpful for commercial leaders aiming to launch or improve their key customer management? Steve Sienkiewicz of Accelerate Consulting suggests that KAM ought to be viewed as three-stage journey through a series of transformations – Align, Advance and Accelerate – and details…
The Loccioni story was told from the point of view of a key account manager, Mattias Bernhard, which highlighted a different selection and operating approach for only partly dedicated key account managers in a common SME situation, where they may be focused on a narrower range of products/services with a potentially more technical sell, in addition to other roles…
Caroline Hondre, Group General Manager, Customer Engagement, International SOS, leading worldwide medical and travel security assistance firm, described her role and experience in setting up her company’s account management programme. Customer facing roles were redefined, the process and criteria for lead handling and development changed, and new principles and ways of learning were introduced with a Key…
People love case studies and Nigel Jenkins described several, including a telecoms example in which his company had once been 17th in an industry-dominant customer’s list of 17 suppliers and threatened with delisting. Fortunately most companies introducing KAM are not faced with such a dire situation – but it meant that the whole company swung round KAM…
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