Key Account Relationships

There’s a lot to learn about how to develop and manage a relationship with a key customer. Such interorganisational relationships come with costs and commitments, so they need time, structure and purpose to develop and profit from them.   

So this track through relevant items in AKAM’s Member Resources is designed to:

1. clarify the importance and nature of key account relationships
2. establish a common language to describe relationship levels and nature 
3. show how relationship levels match with strategy
4. establish the difference between social and interorganisational relationships
5. appreciate how to structure interorganisational relationships
6. learn how to develop key account relationships
7. recognise and avoid issues with over-close relationships 

These relationships can be personal and professional as well, but they are not and should not be the same as friendships.

Follow the track to learn how to develop and manage more productive relationships with your key accounts.

Relationships with key accounts: follow the track

1. Relationships with key accounts: Implementation
   • Podcast with Richard Ilsley and Olivier Rivière on the role and importance of key account relationships (objectives a,d)
2. Understanding and developing relationships with key accounts
   • Self-explanatory slides from Dr Diana Woodburn with models and tools for managing and developing relationships (objectives a,b,c,f)
3. Inhuman relationships 
   • Short paper from Dr Diana Woodburn on expectations in interorganisational relationships (objective d)
4. Developing value from strategic relationships.
   • Webinar with Micheal Winslow on the role, value and purpose of these relationships (objectives a,c,e)
5. Trust, build, maintain, repair – a continuous journey
   • Paper from Alistair Taylor on the importance of management of trust (objectives a,d,f)
6. How to build better remote relationships with clients.
   • Webinar with Kim Arnold exploring techniques for building relationships at a distance (objective f)
7. Customer relationship management: engagement or exploitation 
   • Paper from David Hawkins of the Institute for Collaborative Working (objectives a,c,e)
8. How to build winning relationships with Procurement:                                                                              
   • Webinar with Jens Hentschel explain the views and processes on the ‘other side’ of the relationship (objective f)
9. Building effective relationships with government stakeholders                                                                   
   • Webinar with Anthony Arkle on how relationships with public bodies work (objectives e,f)
10. KAM – Procurement personal relationships: the danger of boundary spanner corruption
    • Presentation slides from Professor Stephan Henneberg on potential issues when relationships get too close (objective g)