How can KAM Sales help your Organization?
What is Key Account Management (KAM) Sales? Key Account Management, or KAM as it is called, is usually not a transactional activity. It involves larger stakes and requires a buy-in from all stakeholders that are involved. After all, KAM Sales is not a single activity we are talking about, but a whole relationship that we are putting on the table. Essentially KAM Sales is a much wider term than sales will ever be. Typically, there are certain challenges that arise with it every now and then, such as, short-term interest wins over long-term goals. Secondly, it can be overpromising. This often leads to mishaps and even fatalities of Key Accounts, especially in cases of overpromising and under-delivering. When everyone at the organizational level is not looped in, there could be a rise in confusion, chaos, and inefficiencies. But all these probable gaps can be taken care of if certain things are seen to. Identify the Key Accounts for KAM Sales Every Account can’t be categorized under Key Account Sales. Identifying key accounts is crucial. Strategic and complex organizations, which are inclined to participate in collaborating and co-creating value should be adopted as Key Accounts. These Key Account Sales should have potential and considerable long-term possibilities to ensure maximized lifetime value. Conduct a historical study of KAM Sales data Key Account Management Sales does not mean jumping into an engagement that may turn out to be lopsided, one way or the other. Once the potential is identified, it pays to study past data to understand the dynamics of the account in areas such as product, pricing, service- gaps if any and growth potential. Based on this, a mutually beneficial contract can be drawn. Find and train the right people for KAM Sales positions Key Account Managers may not be your best salespeople and vice versa. Sales Acceleration needs a unique skill set in the key account management scenario. It is more of an overarching function like that of a Project Manager. This is a CFT, a cross-functional team that will come from top to bottom in the hierarchy and left to right, across functions. It is integral to have the right team who knows what the stakes are and what they have to do for their accounts to grow exponentially. Track, Measure and Build The true measure of a Key Account is in the lifetime value of that customer to your company and the value-added to the customer’s bottom line. This is what one needs to track and measure regularly and build a Key Account Management Sales program that evolves with the customer’s or rather, the Key Account’s evolving needs. The Sales team overseeing the Key Accounts should comprise of people who can identify customers that can be moved up the KAM status. The alignment between marketing and sales will define the success of your KAM technology adoption program. It is all about collaboration and co-creating success. This is how we feel KAM Sales can be a fruitful endeavor for any organization, please reach out if you have any thoughts to share on this topic! I’d love to hear from any reader who’s been inspired by this blog.
Can Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning impact KAM?
My marketing team often insists that I write about Key Account Management. Until now, I often thought that since there is already so much written about it, how could I possibly throw more light on the subject with the aim of ‘adding more value’ to it at the start of the new year. So, here’s what I thought I’d do; I thought it better to summarize all that I have written in the past and open up a new discussion on whether or not (and most importantly, how) Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Language (ML) can be used for Account Management. May I just mention here that I don’t know the answer to the above! Not yet at least! But here’s what can help: I had once written about how to segment key accounts. It is essential to understand, at least once a year, which of your accounts are your ‘strategic partners’ and in which accounts you are a ‘tactical vendor’. Or somewhere in between-Cooperative/Interdependent relations with clients. This exercise need not be complex or time-consuming. Another time, I had elaborated on white space analysis and metrics to track for Key Accounts in a two-part blog. We can identify areas of growth in an account by building an account landscape that consists of the ‘Buying Centers-Offerings’ matrix. The account growth if analyzed separately in terms of ‘farming’ and ‘mining’ growth will give a real picture of where the growth is coming from and future possibilities. With the growing use of technologies like AI and ML, my mind is often occupied with assessing its true value on Key Account Management. Does it support KAM just as well as it does marketing, sales, and other associated business activities? Honestly, I still don’t know the answer. Even as a participating industry professional I too am often confused with ABM/ABS/ABE claiming Key Account Management space with AI/ML. For those uninitiated, ABM/S/E stands for Account-Based Marketing/Sales/Everything. While I do agree that AI/ML algorithms can be built to identify the right accounts through intent/ searches/ announcement these accounts can also be targeted effectively using display advertising based on role/function and their watering hole (media). All the AB(X)s still only focus on acquiring an account in the B2B marketing context. That is not Key Account Management. The fact is, KAM is what you do after acquiring the strategic account. Some of the most critical elements of Key Account Management include: Understanding the customer’s business deeply. How they are structured, which business units are growing rapidly, geography-wise spread, what are the strategic initiatives and management changes – are some of the areas to study. Creating a solution using my products/services to create more value for the customer’s business challenges. Understanding which of our current engagements could grow as well as which are at risk and what are the new doors to open. Collaborating and building relationships with people in the customer organization as well as internally within my company. Making account plans with the above information leading to revenue goals, specific actions, and timelines. All these listed elements are human processes that require a fair amount of cognitive thinking. Every account for a key account manager will have unique situations requiring tailor-made solutions, approaches, or strategies. I don’t see a possibility of it ‘trending’ to make any regressive analysis here. The key takeaway is that – any good account manager will use heuristics rather than a deduction to make decisions. The best I have achieved is to create frameworks, (not processes!) for strategic account management. A key account manager is constantly asking questions to herself and her collaborators. Whereas, AI/ML is about answering questions. That is where I am stuck and I am hoping 2021 will give me some clarity on this. You can explore the innovations in KAM Technology in recent years by reading our Ebook.
Key Account Management (KAM) – Past, Present and Future
KAM Definition – Key Account Management is a strategic approach distinguishable from account management or key account selling and should be used to ensure the long-term development and retention of strategic customers. The acronym used by professionals in this industry is KAM. Past What the customer thinks he is buying, what he considers “value” is decisive – it determines what a business is, what it produces and whether it will prosper’ – Peter Drucker Origin of KAM The origin of KAM lies way back in the era of Peter Drucker. A learned man, he understood the concept of customer dynamics and forecasted the change during his time. It was then that organizations realized the concept of soft selling, and started focusing on relationship mapping with their customers. According to research, companies that focused on long-term relationships with customers generated more profits than the companies that focused on short-term customer goals. Hence maintaining long-term happy relationships with customers became a ritual with practices like contact management, behavior-based loyalty and reward programs, etc. Organizations began to develop separate teams of ‘Account Managers’ that were solely responsible for looking after and managing the company’s larger and more valuable Accounts. Special teams were even developed to manage ‘high potential’ Accounts that needed to be nurtured and developed over time for a potentially rewarding relationship. Pareto Principle As the markets evolved, customer – buyer relationships evolved. The Pareto Principle was a defining observation – 80% of revenues came from 20% of Accounts or Customers. Those Accounts were later referred to as ‘Key Accounts’. Organizations started focusing on resources primarily on Key Accounts. However, Strategic Account Management was still an underserved opportunity. The people responsible for managing Key Accounts were in reality ‘Key Account sellers’, managing opportunities rather than the relationship. Present It is only in the recent few years when companies have started realizing that when buyers and sellers share a collaborative, interdependent relation, productivity increases in the long term. Looking at the current market scenario, there seems to be a rise in overall KAM technology adoption and awareness across industries globally, but if we talk about the United States, the overall Google searches for KAM have remained constant over the past 5 years time. In the graph from Google Trends below, you can see the number of searches for Key Account Management in the United States over the period of the last 5 years. Well! A possible reason for the stagnancy could be a lack of perception about KAM as a dynamic or trendsetting function in the organization. Key Account Managers are a bit like unsung heroes, chipping away at complex relationships, away from the limelight. Needless to say, they have almost the same pressure as the regular Sales team to meet their quotas, but because successes are not so fast or visible, they tend not to be top of mind when it comes to the development of enablement or automation tools like CRM. Automation is generally some modified version of CRM because the focus tends to remain on the Key Account Managers individual relationship building skills. Methodologies for KAM Sales tend to be homemade, and core processes are not systematic or consistent across the organization. However, like every other field, technology is driving the world and KAM can’t escape for long. Key Accounts are getting increasingly complex, dynamic, global and networked. There is a genuine need to be able to automate and institutionalize key processes, reduce a person’s dependence, enable the people who drive KAM, manage data and analytics and of course track customer goals and opportunities in a more structured way. Associations like SAMA are trying to spread awareness globally about Strategic Account Management & emerging technologies through their efforts and events. We are looking forward to seeing a lot more KAM tech in Dreamforce’16 coming up this October. However, the traditional mindset that considers KAM an ‘art’ tends to question the scope of technology. We say it’s time for organizations to start asking- can technology transform the way we manage and grow our Key Accounts? It’s a question that we just can’t afford to ignore anymore. Future The future of KAM is about not just increasing productivity in the long term but about creating value for all shareholders in the ecosystem. With increasing complexity, it’s imperative to look for solutions that operate at the cross-section of the art and science of Key Account Management and help take execution to the next level. On the positive side, some industries are leading the charge for KAM, with Google trends showing a positive increase for KAM searches over past 12 years across Banking, Health and Business and Industrial areas. These are also the early adopters for KAM technology. The 90s was the year of CRM; 20s can be the year of KAM technology. What do you think? We’d love to hear your views on the past, present, and future Key Account Management, and especially on technology to transform Key account management. Write to me and we will share the best ones with all our readers on this blog next month!
Janus-Faced Key Account Managers?
Key account managers share a love-hate relationship with key account management methodologies. Ironic, isn’t it?Often, I have heard KAM purists say that the best Key Account Management is to understand customer’s strategic goals and find ways of helping them achieve that. The Key account managers aren’t amused and retort, ‘You know what is the strategic goal of my customer? They want to rationalize the number of vendors to half this year. The remaining vendors have to find ways of saving at least 25% of the price. Another classical KAM theory advice is, ‘You must “co-create” value with customers. An Account Manager from a plastic molding company heard this at a conference. *Later during coffee break* “Oh yeah ‘co-create’ b**l sh*t.” One of his customers wants to convert many engine parts from metal to plastic. But refused to spend jointly on developing the prototype and mold. The best he could get was supplying fixed volumes for the first year if prototyping is successful. He knows that in the second year, he has to compete for the price with other vendors. So much for ‘co-creation’. It is foolish to broad-brush key account management. KAM in different industries like enterprise SaaS, plastic molding, IT Services, and commodity steel will be different. I think we should begin by making KAM methodologies simpler. The theorists and coaches have gone too deep and far to differentiate one methodology from the other. Therefore many are utopian and not practical anymore. It partially explains why key account managers hate to follow them to the ‘T’. Utopian Key Account Management For example, other days I came across a relationship map template where every customer contact was to be tagged with 5 parameters. Political Role Personality Type Your Relationship Coverage. Each of these parameters has 5+ options to choose from. This is over and above hygiene attributes – name, title, department, location, reports to, reporters, budget controlled, opportunities….. Is it realistic to get this data for even 3 dozen contacts in an account? Even if you get it who will document this? Even if one does, who will update this data every quarter?Come on, be a sport. This is an example of only ‘Contact Relationship’. These coaches/ theorists have complicated and made unrealistic all other elements of KAM like Account Planning templates and Account Segmentation. On the other extreme, KAM practitioners (Account Managers) have left it to ‘Heroes’ or serendipity. Basically relying on that individual with good relationships and domain knowledge to manage the account. Or leave it to chance – being there at the right time, with the right people, and with a solution that fits NOW. Ideally, strategic account management stakeholders should strive to strike a balance. Account manager comfort has to be balanced with account priorities with account planning being right there at the top.Perhaps, the time has come for us to go back to KISS for KAM. Keep It Simple, Stupid. Here is how to keep it simple. You just have to read my strategic account management process blog.
Did you read MTA’s Buyer Guide on Key Account Management Software?
Thinking of which is the best Key Account Management Software in the market? Here is the answer. MarTech Advisor (MTA), one of the world’s leading sources for marketing technology news, research, product comparisons & expert views, recently published an extensive Buyer’s Guide to Key Account Management Software. This 32 page KAM Bible covers a wide range of topics from opportunities that induced the need for KAM enablement to listing Key Account Management software currently in the market. It makes us happy to announce that this exclusive Buyer’s Guide rates DemandFarm as the ‘Best-fit KAM & Sales Enablement tool’ in the market. Too busy to read the report? Don’t worry, we have got all of it covered for you. We have summarized all the useful information in this easy to read the blog. Without further ado, let’s look at the salient points that led to the rise of Key Account Management software. The Need for Key Account Management Software The inclusion of Key Account Management into various business processes has changed the dynamics of the relationship mapping between organizations and their Key Accounts. The importance of managing relationships with strategically significant customers was always a ‘no-brainer’, but only a few organizations were able to carry out the Key Account Management process efficiently. The times are changing for the better and organizations are investing both in Key Account Managers and Key Account Management tools. So what was the catalyst that brought forth this change… Catering to Key Accounts is paramount to an organization’s revenue growth. This fact is made evident by the 80/20 Pareto Principle which states that 80% of your business comes from 20% of your customers. Key Accounts are a boon that keeps on yielding profit. With cross-selling up-selling in Key Accounts, the revenue increases without the hassle of acquiring a new customer. The customers you will acquire with referrals from Key Accounts helps ease the strain on your marketing and sales efforts. Key Accounts are hard to acquire and even harder to maintain. In fact, the real challenge of an Account Manager starts after the acquisition of an account. The inclusion of Strategic Account Management processes into the organization helped the management of Key Accounts. However, a tool was needed for the effective implementation of these processes. The statements above prove the true worth of Key Accounts and the need to harvest, nurture and grow them. This need led to the inception of Key Account Management Software. Challenges resolved using Key Account Management Software: Data in Silos – Data in an organization is spread in silos or distributed across multiple systems. This restricts Key Account Manager from identifying and extracting complete information regarding their accounts. Key Account Management Software plays a significant role in handling this challenge efficiently. Lack of key insights – Even if a Key Account Manager is successful in accumulating all the data points, they are useless without key insights. A Key Account Management software helps extract knowledge from this data, providing the KAM with key insights thus aiding in realizing the optimal potential of Key Accounts. Multiple tools – With various individual tools and systems such as CRM, Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, etc for their day to day work to manage Key Accounts, the life of a Key Account Manager became tough and chaotic. A Key Account Management software helps solve the complexity by directly integrating with existing CRM and providing insights and analysis from existing data. What should a Key Account Management Software deliver? A good Key Account Management software should increase Key Account Manager’s productivity while simultaneously providing him with key insights and tools to manage and grow Key Accounts. Key Account Management software should be a one-stop-shop for everything related to Key Accounts. Following are the things that a Key Account Management software should deliver: Visual Org Chart Communication Tracker Contact History Affiliations Mapping Data Management ( collation, formatting, storage, etc.) Data Consumption Approach Real-time, anytime, anywhere access Collaboration Tools Easy report generation, exporting and sharing Reminders & prompts Data Analytics Finance Tracker How to evaluate a Key Account Management Software? Choosing the right Key Account Management software is a challenge, which a guide book like this is addressing. Following are some parameters to evaluate a KAM software: Trial or Demo Cost of Deployment Ability to Customize Integration with existing CRM Onboarding and Customer Success Speed of Deployment Business Impact Areas Adopting an Account Management approach along with the right tool can help transform your business. Following are few KAM enablement impact areas: People cost – Account-related data in an organization is highly vulnerable. All the business intel is tied to Account Manager; if he leaves so does your data! Opportunity cost – An organization loses deals and opportunities every day due to the lack of key insights. These insights are hidden in data silos and are hard to discover without the right key account management tool. Business cost – Without the right tools, the highly paid Key Account Managers are forced to waste their time on creating reports, collating data and tracking down people. Key Account Management software in the market currently Following is a list of Key Account Management software in the market currently for Medium/Large segment: Now that you know about the best Key Account Management software in the market don’t forget to request a demo of DemandFarm. Remember, we are just a click away!
Cross-Selling – The 6 How-To-Do-It for Key Account Managers
The main strategies of cross-selling up-selling can be broken down into 6 strategies for successful Key Account Management as detailed below. If these are followed, they give good results, as has been proven in the past. Check if your Key Account Managers have the skills required for cross-selling: Implementing a good cross-selling strategy is where things might go wrong. A piece of very good and sound product knowledge is a must-have for your Key Account Managers. At the same time, they cannot go overboard and push the prospect to say yes to you. Each Key Account Manager’s product portfolio should be kept to a size where they know each product in their portfolio well and get familiar quickly with new additions. Cross-selling requires that customers get a good fit and benefit: Sales for the sake of selling does not work. You cannot push unrelated products to prospects. They will buy only if they see a good fit for the product for their needs. A good idea would be to create a solution for many products that would be of more value to the customer than individual products. An integral part of cross-selling is also counseling and advice to customers in helping them make the right choice. Moreover, in providing them good customer service long after the purchase is made. KYC is a good technique to find out the woes and the wows of your customers regarding your products: Key Account Managers should always keep the customers engaged and happy without being intrusive, at the same time, gleaning insights from the customers about existing products through questions and surveys. This information should be used to fill current gaps and work on new products to fill a possible gaping need. Be more than a salesperson to your clients: Clients always see salespersons as trusted partners and feel good when the salesperson behaves like one. To ensure that valuable information regarding each Key Account and client preferences and peeves stays with the salesperson, you should work on a database with all essential information and share it with the sales team. This can help salespersons to make customized recommendations to each client and explain how a certain product may benefit him by using specific examples assimilated through the database. Sales and relationship analytics through Automation: Automating the sales process helps in keeping a close watch on client decisions and purchases and then identifying clients who are most likely to buy additional products from you. These automation tools use buyer profiles and personas through a scoring or weight-age method to identify hot prospects. The right message and the right move at the right time are crucial to cracking a deal: Account Managers should know the buyers enough to understand what their next move should be when to make their next move, how to do it, what to say, and what will seal the deal. They should also have a finger on the pulse of which campaigns are working and which are not and which click with whom. Cross-selling needs establishing clear account planning processes, setting expectations, training the team adequately and continuously, and monitoring results, not to forget course correction whenever the need is felt. Technology is the one thing that ties together all cross-selling efforts.
Value Selling – as the First Step to Key Account Management
Needless to say that the first step to Key Account Management is Value Selling. Key/Strategic Account Management is incomplete without it. Value selling, however, exotic the term may sound, is a basic step to elevating your most important and critical accounts to the stature of Key Accounts. Most organizations are adept at using the STP (Segmenting, Targeting, Positioning) principle to differentiate their offerings in the market, vis-a-vis their target audience. But they still stand a big risk of losing the fine line of differentiation to their competitors who are eager to kill their first-mover advantage in no time at all. The truth of the marketplace which resembles a war zone at all times is that competitors are fast to move in and duplicate your hitherto unique positioning or offering. This makes your USP a commodity over time and this holds for most products and services over time. As per buyer perception research (Corporate Executive Board Research), out of the 100 times that sellers do a unique pitch and call their products unique, 86 of these times, buyers do not find anything unique about it; neither do they find anything compelling enough; in fact, the universal feeling is that the features are more or less the same as offered by other sellers of the same category of products. The truth is that organizations should see their products from the customer’s perception and not inside-out. You need to understand certain basics of Value Selling. The first rule of Value Selling is that prospects and customers need to like and trust you, the seller, first. If they do, then comes the next challenge – they seek the best value and the lowest risk. The eternally and arguable lopsided customer expectation of getting the best product at the lowest price is truth. That is what customers expect. They buy the product that fits these expectations the best. That means that they are willing to pay a certain price for a certain value. The universal truth about customers is that – Value and Risk are defined by the customer and not you, the seller. Thus, every salesperson needs to be well equipped and prepared to discuss tangible business cases, deliver desired outcomes to customers and manage risks while embracing value selling to accelerate sales. The organization should enable its sales force to deliver value to its customers ably and easily with the right sales enablement framework. For the products and services that are more like commodities, organizations need to get into automation to ensure smooth delivery to buyers in little time, perfect pricing and a great deal of standardization. In such cases, getting in a salesperson may not be a good idea at all. However, for products that are high-involvement and one-time purchases, and products and on which there is a lot riding, as seen from the customer’s point of view, these products need to be handled with a lot of TLC by the sales force. This is where Value Selling needs to come in. The salesperson who is the front end for such products needs to be well trained in the principles of Value Selling. Here, the organization needs to support them in training so they acquire a strong business acumen, key domain knowledge, and powerful insights to enable them to sell the right way and make a strong case in the organization’s favor. They need to be good at handling senior-level talks which are key to value selling. The salesperson needs to have the right kind of maturity in selling these value products. To recap, every organization needs to have product differentiation and understand the sales enablement, they need to have for every product category. Automation for the lower hanging fruit, the low-involvement products where buying is a matter of habit for the buyer; and for the high-involvement products, a different kind of sales enablement with training in the right skills, to enable the sales force to value-sell. Value selling is an art and once acquired can lead to the acquisition of key accounts for the organization and hence should be the first step in Institutionalize Key Account Management processes and methodology. However, without the right sales enablement framework, this is more likely to remain a distant dream. Explore our blog on cross-selling up-selling in which we’ve elaborated how it can be used to grow business in 2021.
How Key Account Management can change the world
Impact of Kay Account Management I am a Key Account Manager and I am very cognizant of the fact that I can change the fortunes of a company with a single strategic insight at the right time. Why do I think that? History is replete with companies that reached iconic heights and then spiraled into catastrophe. A few tragedies that have struck the business community in the past few decades are: Kodak Kodak was once a photography giant and now is long gone! What if Kodak had an Account Manager who was strategically strong and understood that print photography was going to go out of business soon. What if he suggested that Kodak use some of its vast resources to build its digital photography empire? Maybe Kodak would have been the Canon of our age! Hummer Another great example is that of the Hummer. The largest SUV known to man was a coveted car in the 80s and 90s. Owning a Hummer was a brawny status symbol and signaled that you had arrived in life. But in the new millennium, it became impossible for General Motors to market an SUV that gave the questionable mileage of 10 miles per gallon. Imagine if they had a Key Account Manager who could tell them that the turn of the century was going to bring an increased awareness about climate change. With those environmental warriors in mind, the Hummer could have created a new offering that may have kept them in business. But alas! They did not have a key account manager like me who could show them the right strategy. Nokia But one of the biggest failures of the 21st century is undoubtedly Nokia. The Finnish tech giant, which was once the biggest mobile company in the world is now nowhere! They were unable to keep up with the technological advancements in their field and were stomped upon in the stampede that is Apple and Samsung. Once again, what if they had a key account manager who could anticipate this and provide additional R&D capabilities to ensure that Nokia continued to push out iconic products? Alas! These companies did not have the strategic insights that my brethren could offer. A Key Account Manager is indispensable for most companies because they can offer strategic insights to a client that could generate additional revenue streams and successfully future proof of the client. So from sad stories let’s move onto success stories! Boeing-Nordam Boeing 787 Dreamliners are quite literally the dream of airline manufacturers across the world. They are fuel-efficient and long-range jets that bring down the cost of air travel. But to make it fuel-efficient, it was integral to bring down the weight of the aircraft. Nordam, a maker of aerospace parts and systems worked together with Boeing for 18 months to create a composite window frame that was 50% lighter than traditional aluminum frames. By this collaboration Nordam was able to increase its revenue share from Boeing and Boeing was provided phenomenal external R&D capabilities that it may not have had internally. Sintex Industries- French Manufacturer Sintex Industries, a leading Indian plastics molding company was able to team up with a French manufacturer to develop plastic components for high-speed trains. This strategic partnership allows both parties to innovate together to build world-class products for end-users. What could be better? Timberland-Omni United Some collaborations that are so unique that they have to be saved for last! Timberland a leading clothing manufacturer teamed up with Omni United a tires manufacturer for a line of tire that can be turned into footwear at the end of their life. The two companies killed two birds with one stone! They brought down their production costs and took up a CSR initiative in one fell swoop! It’s this kind of cross-industry collaboration that fuels the life of a key account manager like me. The ability to impact the environment positively while bringing down costs is what we all strive for. The Key Account Manager who dreamed of this idea is sure to be extremely proud of his achievement! There is no debate about the fact that businesses have changed the way we humans are interacting with one another and the planet. With strategic collaborations, they can do much more with much fewer resources. In this context, key account management needs to be strategically strong, dynamic, and future-focused to ensure that no opportunities are missed. An opportunity missed could be the difference between bankruptcy and resounding success! Please comment below if you know some influential examples and if you have any insights to share.
Introducing KAM Enablement
Last month, I met a very soft-spoken executive – Patrick, who leads the Key Account sales globally for an IT Services and Consulting firm. This meeting was about to change the way I looked at Key Account Management. I always knew Key Account Management helped in revenue growth, but that day I came to know its true potential.We met in downtown Manhattan at Pete’s Coffee shop. As the CEO of a company that built KAM enablement technology, I was excited about this meeting. So, I came early, took a two-seater table in a quiet corner, and waited for him to arrive. My eyes glanced out the window and noticed the people outside. He arrived. We ordered our coffee – I took my favorite Hazelnut latte, and we went back to the corner I had reserved. Patrick flew into New York to attend his company’s Q4 board meeting but graciously spared an afternoon to catch up with me. We talked a lot – from the cold summers of San Francisco to the Jets preparation for the upcoming SuperBowl. But, I could not help notice the palpable stress on Patrick’s face. When I asked, he shrugged it off by mentioning the usual pressure of business growth. I asked again, “What is keeping your mind occupied, Patrick? Did everything go well at the meeting?” He opened up a bit. “Our next year goals are now more focused on profitability, so I have to find a way to grow the business by 18% in next year without increasing the costs of new account acquisition”, he replied. “Hmm, isn’t that the puzzle most CEOs and sales leaders grappling with?”, I questioned. He nodded, and said, “For businesses such as mine, with several multi-million dollar clients, it sounds less like a puzzle and more like rhetoric”. He continued, “We have made maximum in-roads with our major accounts by utilizing the information in our Salesforce CRM”. I immediately asked, “Why don’t you adopt Strategic Account Management as a standard practice for your larger accounts. The methodology and processes are well established now”. It looked like this was something on his mind already. He replied “I know KAM can help, but I am not sure what is the best way to do it. With Salesforce, we know how to make decisions for sales planning. Without any means to know which levers to pull within complex Key Accounts, how will I even propose institutionalizing Key Account management process within my organization” I instantly understood Patrick’s dilemma. He was aware of the importance of KAM technology but also knew that mere CRM cannot show him the path to nurture his Key Accounts and farm them for more revenue. I did not have the answer then. Soon after, Patrick left, and I walked back to Times Square. I kept thinking. Why were sales leaders not thinking in terms of technologies that can enable KAMs, just like CRMs help in sales enablement? Seemed like I had gotten a hangover of Patrick’s dilemma. As I walked into the Times Square, I was stopped by a giant screaming display of T-mobile’s 4G network. The display showcased T-mobile’s 4G technology, which enabled people to do more! “This is it”, I said to myself. “This is the gap which Patrick wants to fill”. Just like the 4G network, Patrick needs a technology that can help him institutionalize Key Account Management in his organization. To enable his KAM teams to navigate the complex ecosystem of large accounts. Now, I became optimistic! Perhaps, KAM enablement is the answer to Patrick and many such B2B leaders, who need an intelligent layer above industry-standard CRMs to power their decision making in Account Management. That night, I slept well, knowing that there is true potential for institutionalizing KAM in large organizations using key account management tools. What is KAM Enablement? Think of KAM Enablement as James Bond’s Q. We see a KAM as a hero who accomplishes highly complex and uncertain objective of growing Key Account revenues year-on-year. He needs an intelligent aide to achieve his goals in a more deterministic manner. KAM enablement is a means to support KAMs in making decisions regarding their Key Accounts. While industry-standard CRMs do a great job as storage, retrieval, and high-level, averages-based analytics of the information, KAM enablement technology acts as an add-on layer on top of the CRM and processes the existing information to support deeper-level decision-making regarding Key Accounts. As important as Key Accounts are for an organization (80% revenues coming from 20% accounts), the future sales opportunities cannot be left at the mercy of a KAM’s behavior (what if he leaves your company), or the ability of the people to analyze all the information stored in the CRM. Enablement technology in 2017 is the precursor to Artificial Intelligence-driven CRMs – already talked about by Salesforce founder and CEO – Marc Benioff. Read this article for more info. I would paraphrase Marc Benioff here: The goal with SalesForce Einstein is to know what customers want before they know it. Eventually, we are also headed there, just that we started with the particular niche to serve KAMs. At DemandFarm, we built a technology that uses advanced algorithms to churn the existing information in the industry-standard CRMs (such as SalesForce, Microsoft Dynamics) to uncover unparalleled insights into your Key Accounts’ needs. Learn more about how KAM Enablement will help you grow your business in 2017.
The Real Challenge for KAM is What Happens After the Sale?
Key Account Management is a challenging function in an organizational setup, alright. Because although it is not responsible for direct sales, it is responsible for nurturing the customer after the sale is done, for as long as is possible. The nurturing is not as easy as the Key Account Management has to work with the customer as a partner would. The Key Account Manager has to understand the customer thoroughly, understand their problems, especially the not-so-obvious ones, and work out win-win solutions to resolve the problem or fill the gaps. Like any relationship, this is one key relationship that an Account Manager has to work on continuously, without letting up. For this, a CRM alone simply won’t do. The Key Account Management needs a specialized system tailor-made for the role of a KAM. This system provides an overall view of the entire account, the people involved, the multiple roles they play, their influencer-potential, the stakes that a complex account brings with it and customer dynamics, in order to take the right action at the right time. The new system takes into account the existing CRM and builds on it. Focus on the Accounts from which you can derive maximum value Organizations need to identify Key Accounts and help their Key Account Managers to focus on them. There is no point in spreading the Key Account Managers overall accounts. Key Account Managers have a lot of work to do within their Key Accounts. They need to be clear about: What their customers are trying to achieve and how they can help them. Whether they are aware of and know the customer’s corporate objectives and personal goals? How well they understand their customer is important Whether they and their strategy is in sync with the customer’s goals and can lead them to success. This way, the Key Account Managers can lead their customers to success, which is a win-win. A Key Account Management Software helps the managers fill in the information with the knowledge they have gained about your Key Accounts. It helps them monitor, control and manage their Key Accounts centrally. It is a reservoir of all that is important to their customer – his goals, objectives, current plans, actions, future plans, concerns, risks, updates, the strategy, the impact, the failures, the measures are taken to correct if necessary – everything is held together in a central place by the specialized system for the Key Accounts. This bank provides a single-window knowledge to an organization’s Key Accounts and provides deeper insights into the customer relationship. It helps the manager be on the same page with his customers about the actions being taken and their impact and future plans being made jointly by both. With the right system for KAM technology, the Key Account Manager becomes a trusted partner to his Key Accounts. They can see that he is more than a vendor to them. They know that he provides value for every step planned, every action taken. The system also provides transparency and clear accountability for both, so that everything happens in time and there are better chances of success when both partners are in it together. This system with its knowledge and information bank about all stakeholders and influencers at the customer level ensures that he is not left high and dry when his first contact leaves his job. This system takes care of people’s movement which is a natural phenomenon in an enterprise setting. It accounts for the fact that a relationship is between two organizations, and people may come and go, but the trust factor and knowledge built painstakingly over a period, is taken good care of. Key Account management allows the Key Account Managers to take on the challenges of his role while achieving success with his key relationships for the long term. If you found this blog insightful, you can also read our blog on Account Management or Explore the complete guide to Cross-selling and Up-selling to identify unexplored opportunities for your business as well as your clients’ business and grow better in 2021.