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Trust isn’t a simple or absolute concept, it’s never perfect and incontrovertible. Alistair Taylor explores and explains trust in a KAM setting, including the range of contexts from the individual to the team, and to the organisation. A customer may trust a person but not their company – or vice versa! Alistair builds a structure…
Karim Bennaziz Houmane, Global Head of Commercial Cards Sales, BNPParibas highlighted critical issues that have developed in KAM – deterioration of the relationship mode back to a transactional mode, circular conversations or the ‘continuous crisis’ mode and reduction of the KAM to problem solver. He introduced the idea of ‘double loop learning’ as a route to more…
Key account managers often fail to understand the customer’s buying journey and Procurement’s role in it. Jens Hentschel of Fivis uncovered Procurement’s perfectly legitimate questions and anxieties, showing that price is far from being the most important of them. Trying to avoid Procurement is a really bad idea – much better to understand and build…
Are close business relationships always synonymous with superior performance? Does the dark side of a business relationship spread in relationship portfolios? Based on interviews with key account managers, this research uncovers that the emergence of a ‘dark side’ in a business relationship can overshadow its benefits. This research also shows that the dark side can…
Does your customer fully trust you? You are of course trustworthy, yet this does not mean you are trusted. Trust is essential bedrock for progressing customer relationships yet at times it is managed too passively. Its assumed to be at an acceptable level when this really is not good enough. With a richer and deeper…
Dominykas Cibulskas in Lithuania looks at current events and what they mean for business and KAM. He is clear that ignoring reality or staying neutral is not an option: indeed, some companies have already fallen in the conflict of human v business values. Whatever is done -or not done – it is observed by customers and…
Close and strong business relationships potentially have many positive effects. However, researchers Nima Hierati and Yumen Zhang of Queen Mary University London identified the possibility of forces of destruction building below the surface. This short report on their pilot study revealed alarming developments such as risky reductions in partners’ monitoring and safeguarding activities, and the dangers…
Collaborative thinking allows organisations to apply their capabilities and resources to expand propositions. But it’s not so simple. Collaboration and integrated approaches can increase customers’ perception of risk and trigger internal friction. At the same time, formal contracts often feel more like ‘contracting for failure’ and can be really divisive. But David Hawkins of the Institute for…
Research thesis | Darren Bayley’s MA dissertation is a case study of the implementation of KAM across the Middle East, Africa, Central and Eastern Europe, India and the Commonwealth. It highlights the importance of alignment, relationships and trust which are also fundamentals of more sophisticated KAM. And also limitations arising from basic IT systems and…
Is this a case study in influencing and gaining great business or an example of taking advantage of a customer with a problem? When a key customer had an aborted product launch and needed emergency chilled storage for perishable products, Girteka was able to help – but at over twice the going rate! The customer…
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