Where’s the HUMOR in Technology?
In Key Account Management , we have all witnessed the evolution of data management from its manual form to the present day digital avatar. The term ‘digital’ itself encompasses the evolution from spreadsheets and basic sales tracking software to the highly specialized Key Account Management software and solutions we see today. While the power of technology to transform the way we manage and interact with our most valuable customers is well accepted across verticals, choosing the right technology and its scope can still be a challenge for many sales professionals. A good place to start may be to think about the areas of transformation and the potential impact in those areas. Over the years, we have recorded a dizzying array of parameters to consider, and that is not including the unique circumstances of specific industries and organizations. We have distilled the former down to what we call ‘HUMOR’, a starting point to approach the overwhelming challenge of choosing technology that works for you. Harnessing the Hidden Value of Key Accounts Most salespeople would agree that in the twentieth century increasing the top line was synonymous with maximizing the number of customers. Over time new statistics such as customer acquisition costs gained focus and in the twenty-first century, retaining and maximizing the potential of existing customers, particularly of Key Accounts, has become critical to increasing the top line. But we have all faced the drawbacks of departmentalization and specialization that make it difficult for individuals in large companies with multiple products and competing divisions to see the company, or the customer, as a single entity. One way in which key account management tools can help address this lacuna is by creating a comprehensive grid, with the company’s offerings on one axis and customer requirements on the other. Each square in the grid can be analyzed to ascertain whether the company has engaged with the customer for a particular product offering and whether it succeeded in exploiting the customer’s buying potential. Technology can be a great enabler to reveal the untapped potential of Key Accounts. DemandFarm’s Whitespace Analysis tool uses a Key Account’s financial and relationship mapping data to calculate and color code squares in a grid. The colors represent the health of engagements or orders and new business in the pipeline. The analysis reveals white spaces in the grid or unexplored white space opportunities for new business from that account. Targeting white spaces unlocks the hidden value of Key Accounts and maximizes the potential of existing customers. A case in point is a multinational pharmaceutical company whose sales force was grouped into divisions based on therapy. Salespeople from multiple divisions were visiting some of the same hospitals and doctors, yet each division had its own list of Key Accounts. The company implemented KAM technology and white space analysis revealed that several specialist doctors were being targeted by only one or two therapy divisions, although in practice these doctors wrote prescriptions covering a wide range of the company’s products. As a result of the analysis, the company re-engineered its sales focus and was able to achieve significant growth by exploiting the potential of Key Accounts. Unified Vision, Unified Action At some point in our careers, most of us have witnessed or been part of a vision, mission or brand identity exercise and the time, effort and cost associated with it. But often we observe that when it comes to sales, companies are reluctant to invest in KAM technology. When we dig deeper, we find that investments or budget are not the hurdles, it’s the worry that a unified action plan won’t have all the details or will be too rigid that is the hurdle. How does KAM technology work? The software includes all the details by pulling in data from CRM (Customer Relationship Management) and ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) systems. Technology is used to aggregate the data, identify gaps, prompt users to fill in these gaps, analyze the data and calculate and display financial and relationship metrics for each Key Account. The result is a unified platform for Analysis, Planning, Tracking and Presentation of everything related to Key Accounts. It results in a single system with a macro view that can be drilled down to micro details. As a user, you can fill in details, make changes and view plans and performance depending on your requirements and access permissions. The CEO might be interested in the Grandstand™ view, the Sales Head in the Account Review, the Key Account Manager in his achievement to target and salespeople in the customer’s organizational hierarchy and contact information. Making your Data work for you Companies create and maintain some form of sales data, whether by using software like Salesforce or an in-house methodology. The financial data are usually recorded using accounting software and shared through spreadsheets. This is a classic case of fragmented data in silos that do not have a common interface. As an Account Manager, you have probably waded through this minefield of data, collecting information from various sources to try and get a complete picture of the account. You have experienced first-hand the time and worry associated with this process. Fail to collect all the relevant data or make a mistake in transcribing it and all your plans go awry. And no matter how you interpret the data, someone is sure to disagree. In all likelihood this thought has crossed your mind more than once; “Stop wasting your Account Manager’s time collating information, analyzing it, generating reports and creating presentations.” We would like to add “Let these activities be done in the most efficient way- using technology.” KAM software is designed to avoid re-entry of data, seamlessly interfacing with a CRM or ERP system and pulling in data from multiple sources. The time saved and the improved quality of information and analysis enable the Account Manager to focus on growing Key Accounts instead. Ongoing Engagement Is Strategic Account Management all about relationships? About the salesperson who grew the account, risking his time
This Thanksgiving, Join Me in Celebrating You
Thanksgiving. The perfect time to take a moment and reflect on the things we are grateful for and celebrate them. This year, we are celebrating the fact that we have so much to be grateful for and so much to celebrate! To all the Sales Visionaries who took the idea of selling to Key Accounts – and turned it into the art and the science that Key Account Management is today. We hope you keep setting the bar higher for us. Thank You. To all the technocrats who kept seeking – and finding- better ways to do things…from sales automation to sales enablement, automation, and now, KAM Tech. We look forward to building the future with you. Thank You. To all our supporters – the team at DemandFarm, Our Partners, Our Vendors – we wouldn’t be here without you. There is no greater joy than to grow with you. Thank You. To all the believers – the early adopters – the Sales Leaders, Key Account Managers, Sales Ops teams – who led the change by asking, ‘can technology transform the way we manage and grow our Key Accounts’? We value the opportunity to serve you. For, to serve you is to celebrate you. Thank you. I hope you have a magical Thanksgiving with the ones you love and cherish.
Interview with Olivier Riviere – Consultant & Head of the KAM Practice at Invalio
Olivier tell us about your journey as a Key Account Management Professional and how do you help companies achieve growth through focusing on their strategic partnership with the key account? In the course of my career, from junior team member to Executive in charge of Key Clients, I have always been involved in the relationship with truly strategic customers across various industries: design and manufacturing, semiconductors, Entreprise Software and B2B Marketing & Communication Services. In addition, and I am grateful for this, my job also always included driving a true co-creation process with strategic customers and initiatives aiming at influencing the whole business ecosystem. When I became a consultant, I have quite naturally put these topics at the core of my activities. With my partners, we help companies of all size, analyze their strategic context, customer portfolio, and organizational dynamic in order to design and implement a KAM/GAM approach in line with their strategy, resources, and culture. I insist on working simultaneously on the KAM system AND the people involved in KAM; their skills, their motivation and how they collaborate and with their Customers. When is the right time for businesses to start looking at their client relationships in the more strategic manner? There are many reasons why companies should run a sharp analysis of the true value of each Customer and drive the engagement with selected Accounts more strategically. In theory, you can start at any time and the sooner, the better. As an example, start-ups operating in a B2B environment could take advantage of using KAM techniques upfront, although very few do it. In reality, for medium-size and large companies, the trigger situation for KAM comes from a combination of internal and external factors. The major internal factor is when the Executive Team realizes that KAM is a powerful instrument to accelerate the execution of the company’s strategy, whatever its specifics. The external factors are related to an evolution of the environment: market concentration, competitive threat, new regulation, or the need for more innovation. The trigger situation can also simply be the request of a few Customers to receive special treatment. All in all, it is the job of the Executive Team to assess when to start KAM, and it is an area where some external help can bring very high value. What are the biggest obstacles you see businesses face toward becoming more oriented toward servicing & acquiring a deeper understanding of their strategic accounts? The biggest obstacle is definitely the culture. Exploring the true value of each customer and categorising them accordingly, developing a deep sense of the real Customer Experience and where it matters to improve it, further developing the network of personal relationships with Key customers, all of this requires teamwork, collaboration, and the capacity to drive a sustained collective effort that cuts across disciplines and organisational boundaries. Most companies and not only large ones have difficulties to do this. When you look at why KAM initiatives fail to deliver on their promise, the lack of attention paid to cultural change is always part of the picture. Another frequent challenge is the lack of depth of the analysis of the Key Account organization and the network of relationship. The superficiality of the analysis prevents the vendor’s team from finding new angles to strengthen the ties with strategic customers. Software is eating the world & account management could not escape! Do you feel there is a need of having specialized platforms or software for strategic account management? The answer is definitely yes. CRM systems are currently not adapted for true KAM.and other tools are required. This being said there are different sort of needs that can be covered with an adequate software application. Account Planning and monitoring of execution Definition and management of the Value Proposition Opportunities & Share of Business Management Relationship & Influence Management Communication and Operations (team portal and customer portal) These 5 themes are quite differentiated although they do overlap. I am not sure that a single platform will be able to cover all these needs at the same level of depth and for all type of companies in the near future, but I do not see this as a big problem. Companies need to assess their needs and explore where they should consider adding one or several KAM specific tools to their existing software stack (or replacing old applications by new ones). Will such tech platforms become ‘a must have’ for account managers and their leadership or do you feel it constitutes ‘a nice to have’ capability? We are in a transition era. Commercially available Software tools for KAM are just emerging. I strongly believe that the trend will accelerate rapidly and that the benefits of such platforms will be increasingly recognized by more and more KAM and IT professionals. As the awareness of such tools, and probably the breadth of the offering, improve, KAM practitioners will have to avoid to reproduce the same deadly mistake as in CRM: namely putting the tool before the people. KAM software tools will bring value only if the KAM methodology and toolset used by a company are adequate and if the KAM teams – all people involved in KAM – are sufficiently skilled. Such needs are not covered by any piece of software but by Skills development through training, on-the-job coaching, and experience sharing and by a true focus on teamwork. What is your one mantra for growing strategic client relationships? Act like an entrepreneur. Be able to think and help others think out of the box and secure support for these new ideas. In addition, don’t be rebuffed by resistance and demonstrate patience. Would you like to share an interesting business book you have recently read and what was the key takeaway for you? I recommend “Give and Take, Why Helping Others drives our Success by Adam Grant”. One of my customer, Head of KAM in a German industrial company, has used this book to open the eyes of his colleagues
Answer the ‘Big, Burning Question’ at Dreamforce 2016
Help us answer our ‘big, burning question’ at Dreamforce 2016 Every year we try and bring our big, burning question of the year to Dreamforce, were practicing professionals not only help us find answers but inspire us to ask ourselves even bigger questions…So, if you follow us on social media, you could not have missed our excitement for the upcoming Dreamforce ‘16. Last year, Dreamforce turned out to be a great source of inspiration – the people, products, and technologies from around the world set us thinking about the endless possibilities of technology to transform. Meeting greats like Rick Welts & Bob Myers a bonus. Dreamforce’15 was great, but I missed Key Account Management. Last year, my team and I were honored to present our company DemandFarm at Dreamforce. As a technology that helps B2B Companies manage and grow Key Accounts from within Salesforce, we found tremendous interest and enthusiasm among the community of Sales and Marketing professionals. People were curious and excited by the question – can technology transform the way you manage and grow your most Strategic Customers? Yet, even as the Key Account Management (KAM) tech space grows, I missed seeing more of it in Dreamforce’15. I wish there had been more talks, stalls, and events around Account Management and how technology can transform KAM as we know it. Making Dreamforce’16 count for Key Account Management There is no denying the value of Key Accounts. But how best to navigate these complex, global Accounts, with their dynamic networks and multiple white space opportunities? How can technology bridge the gap between the art and science of Key Account Management and create more value for all stakeholders? This is the question that’s been pushing us to develop technology that can enable people and institutionalize the key account management processes that drive success with Key Accounts. And, I am hoping that Dreamforce’16 will be a great place to take the question to you – the practicing professionals. After all, Dreamforce is all about the biggest ideas, innovations, and interactions. Let’s make it count for KAM this time round! With that in mind, we are setting up a ‘Dreamforce Dialogs’’ calendar so we can meet professionals like you in person and talk about all things KAM tech. We’d also be happy to take more tough questions about how technology can address KAM challenges. Set up a session with us in our Dreamforce Dialogs calendar if you like to organize things in advance. If there is anything you would like to talk about before then, I would love to hear from you at [email protected]. In the meanwhile, join me on Twitter and LinkedIn to get all the exciting updates about all the KAM stuff that matters before and after Dreamforce’16. PS: We are also curating the best Dreamforce Sessions for you! In the weeks leading up to Dreamforce’16, we are writing about all the sessions, people, and parties to watch out for if you are keen on being a part of the Key Account Management conversation. Add us to your address book so you do not miss out on any of the actions.
The 2016 IDC Report on the Salesforce Economy is out!
It’s official! As an entrepreneur, you tend to go by gut feel a lot. Especially when you are breaking new ground like we are – with technology to manage and grow Key Accounts. It is all about building the solutions you believe in, nurturing the people you think will go the distance, working with partners that can help create value and taking the epic journey into the future just based on intuition. However, on some rare occasions, you get confirmation from a credible, fact-based entity that you are on the right track; that the dream is indeed real; and that the choices you have made are 100% justified. Today is one of those days. Today, we are celebrating the confirmation of something we have all grown with and grown from. Today we are celebrating the success of the Salesforce Economy. Why today? Because we just received word about new research that shows that Salesforce and its ecosystem of customers and partners will create nearly 1.9 million jobs and add $389 billion in GDP impact worldwide over the next five years. Because the research confirms that Cloud computing is slated to grow at more than six times the rate of traditional IT spending from 2015 to 2020. Because Salesforce customers have installed apps from the Salesforce AppExchange more than 4 million times. Also, because DemandFarm is one of the awesome apps on the AppExchange that’s been creating value by transforming the way B2B companies manage and grow their Key Accounts. The Ecosystem that has got our head in the clouds When we set out to build DemandFarm as the preferred technology for B2Bs to manage and grow Key Accounts, our goal was to create unparalleled value for our users. This goal was and is in many ways made possible by being a part of the Salesforce Ecosystem. Being native to Salesforce makes it easy for our customers to deploy and use DemandFarm securely and seamlessly from AppExchange, on the cloud. More importantly, it helps address major pain points for our users – Sales professionals and Sales Ops teams – when it comes to data management and customer-centric insights. Here is how we leveraged being on the Salesforce ecosystem to help solve a major customer problem – the lion’s share of data that goes into DemandFarm is populated automatically from the Salesforce CRM data. That means minimal-to-no data entry for Account Managers – which means more time for real Sales work! Because of everything about the Key Account – including Annual Plans – is in one place in one format in DemandFarm, Sales professionals no longer spend hours just entering, collating or compiling data to generate reports or make Account plans. Because the data and the related intel mined from the data are auto-populated and real-time, Sales Ops teams save hours spent chasing after various stakeholders for customer-related data points, crunching the numbers or other data management tasks. DemandFarm joins the dots across complex Account data, so everything about the Key Account is right there in real-time – customer-centric intel that helps make all the right strategic decisions. A Brave New World As we continue to learn, grow and innovate with Salesforce on this epic journey deeper into the clouds, this seems like a great time to take stock of what we have achieved with DemandFarm. With users across every B2B verticals including manufacturing, automotive, retail, and finance, we are pretty delighted with the response we are getting from leadership and users alike. You can read some of our customer success stories here. This year forward, our renewed focus is on enabling the people (read: all stakeholders) and institutionalizing the processes that drive growth for Key Accounts. What do we mean by that? It is pretty simple – everything that matters to Key Accounts and can be managed, facilitated or enriched with technology, we try and make DemandFarm do it. It is about balancing the art and science of Key Account Management– with all the lightness of being on the Cloud, and the convenience of AppExchange. If you are B2B and if you are on Salesforce, then I would strongly recommend a free trial of DemandFarm to see if Salesforce account planning can transform the way you manage and grow your Key Accounts. This month, it is an all-access pass to every single feature we have, for up to 3 users in your company. Don’t miss it. In the meanwhile, we are going to be in celebration mode along with all our compatriots in the Salesforce Ecosystem, as we make our way together into the future of automation and technology.
Dreamforce 2016 Parties Calendar
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Its Q, not James Bond
“I’ll hazard I can do more damage on my laptop sitting in my pajamas before my first cup of earl grey than you can do in a year in the field.”– Q The Role of technology in marketing has been growing exponentially in the last few years. It started evolving with functions like accounting, inventory management, project management. Then came technologies to automate sales, service and most recently, marketing. There are a lot of great technologies available now, and like you, I have tried some of them in my own marketing strategies. Needless to say, technology, tools, gadgets- all of them exist to improve efficiencies of the user, save time, money.. whatever. But when it comes to using technology for marketing particularly, we have a unique phenomenon. Marketing is an art as much as a science – it’s not like a production line or logistics management. And you can never fully automate the ‘art’ aspect of marketing- that still needs a really competent human- i.e. Marketing or Account Manager to lead the effort intelligently. The Key account management tool exists to enhance all of the inherent skills of the Marketer and enable victory. Let’s illustrate this with a really simple example. I bought a fantastic e-mail marketing tool once and thought it would do wonders. But, without a great subject line (headline) that makes sense to the recipient and without really great, relevant content, the email tool is useless. In fact, it could be detrimental and annoy my prospects. In developing DemandFarm over the last 3 years, I set out to make a James Bond-like the tool that solves everything effortlessly and wins the confidence of the most difficult customers. But recently while watching a James Bond film, it dawned upon me that DemandFarm is ‘Q’, not James Bond. For the uninitiated, Q is the nerdy genius providing Bond with all his gadgets. In reality, the user of my product (Key Account Manager) is James Bond. I was trying to make DemandFarm a James Bond. It is imperative for Bond to have a Q at his side. Think for a second, what makes James Bond exceptional?The swag, the license to kill or the awesome gadgets that get him out of every near-death situation he gets himself into? All the tools Bond owns come from Q – the Jetpack, laser shooting Omega Seamaster Professional watch, every gun, every bullet in that gun and the Aston Martin. Bond is incomplete without the modified Aston Martin built by Q. The car is a veritable tank, providing the bond with a companion he can count upon every time. It’s Q’s gadgets that make the man on her majesty’s secret service a living weapon. So for every James Bond of a Key Account Manager out there, dial ‘demandfarm.com’ for your very own Q.
How Many Key Account Managers in the World?
If you are into Key Account Management (KAM), this question would have probably crossed your mind? Originating from finding a solution to retaining Key customers to long-term relationship building to a full-fledged Key Account Management practice, KAM has become a vital ritual for organizations. With KAM, Organizations have recognized the need to ring-fence 80% of their revenue and more. We turned to LinkedIn to drum up the global population of key account managers. It stands at 306,000.Isn’t that quite a number? And if we further categorize the data by, Country Gender Age group We find some interesting data points. With data in, can an infographic be far behind? In this article, we have put all the above data onto one very easily consumable infographic. Please check it out here. Did you find anything interesting in the above infographic? The numbers from Germany and Switzerland definitely deserve a second look. It seems probable that there are job titles that contain ‘Key Accounts’ but are distinct from our conventional definition of Key Account Management. Possibly. What about the age group? Are younger professionals taking a greater interest in an account management career or is it just a function of the talent management approach for KAM organizations? I am interested in knowing your views. The data onto the above infographic were sourced from the LinkedIn Ad management tool. Within the tool, the DemandFarm team used the ‘Job Title’ parameter to determine the numbers. If you like what you see, do not hesitate to share it with the world. 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.
Strategic Account Management Association, Heuristics and Beautiful Summers
This was the first time I visited Chicago in the summer, and it was stunning. I think it’s the most beautiful city in the US when it is not cold. Unfortunately, that’s only 3 months a year; I was told.DemandFarm was honored to be a sponsor of SAMA 2016, and I was delighted to be representing DemandFarm at the event. The gathering of a few hundred SAM (Strategic Account Management) practitioners was exciting because of the opportunity it gave me to learn more about a subject I care deeply about. And I was not disappointed.I feel like I along with our small team at Strategic Account Management Association was able to connect some critical dots in our journey of building DemandFarm as the best possible enabling software for Strategic and Key Account Managers. Here are top three lessons I learnt Strategic Account Management is all about co-creating value for your customers. It sounds great and is true. But how do you quantify that ‘value’? We concluded that while some of it can be quantified, there is also undeniably ‘soft/intangible’ impact. We are now thinking ‘how we can make DemandFarm capture both aspects of value creation’? I have often come across this smirk accompanied by ‘Oh! You can’t have software for SAM/KAM’. This is partly true. At SAMA this year, I kept my eyes, ears, and mind open for more on this ‘art-science’ debate. If a phenomenon can be explained with math equations (algorithms), then sure, we can build key account management software. If it is only art (esoteric and mysterious), there may not be any point in bothering with software – the only the human mind can interpret it, and that too in myriad ways. But what if it is in the middle (heuristics)? Many of the world’s phenomena fall in the middle category. I think it depends on which side it tilts to. Our thinking at DemandFarm where we want to ‘enable’ SAMs was fortified with this insight. We will definitely be exploring more of this in future builds. The last lesson is that Chicago is beautiful in summer.
Demand Farming – Co-creating Customer Value
Many organizations are late in waking up to the value of a Strategic Account Management program. If you were to look at trends in the lead to deal funnel, Account Managers are predominantly talking about how data is not easily accessible or is not leveraged fully or effectively, there is a sustainability challenge in the process and therefore the results; how a formal Key Account Management process will boost results and how a software platform derived from best practices of KAM will help them. Reproducing here, some trends from DemandFarm Inc.’s report on ‘The Hype & Art of KAM’. Industry reports state that about 60% of organizations lose deals because competitors establish a better relationship with the customer. 50% of companies use the attribute “strategic fit” to select their key accounts, followed by 27% using “past/current revenue” for key/strategic account selection. 8 % of respondents identified access to customer executives and decision-makers as the main KAM challenge. 60% of respondents from best-in-class enterprises feel that their biggest KAM challenge is the balancing of short-term sales goals with long-term CRM goals. 2% of organizations still do not have a formal key account management process. 50% of respondents say data about key accounts in their organization is fragmented and not easily accessible. 83% of respondents believe that KAM planning and strategizing will receive a huge boost, with the adoption of a KAM software platform. 60% of respondents feel a software platform derived from KAM best practices would be useful to them. 28% of respondents feel a built-in account planning process would significantly aid them in planning and optimizing revenue from key accounts. To address these challenges, it is important to learn about the different stages of the enterprise lifecycle, how clients and providers view their relationships, what a good client relationship is about as well as how it can impact your results. While doing this, it is integral to adopt one of the two processes – transactional or transformational. Sitting on the fence between the two could prove to be a hindrance in creating and maintaining a happy account. The presenter, Adrian Davis, President, Whetstone Inc. also takes you through the above, as well as Winner’s Quadrant, the Knowledge Funnel, and other important things. He also helps you discover and discuss effective features of SAM software such as Account Whitespace Analysis, Organization Chart with Heat Map Analysis that could tilt the scales in your favor. The session happens now at SAMA’s Annual Conference 2016. Here’s to customer value! To learn more, join the session by Adrian Davis at #SAMAAC16‘.