Measure the Impact of Your Account Planning Solution
Impact of Account Planning Solution This ebook provides ways to assess the efficiency and effectiveness of your Digital Account Planning Solution. From must-have basics to improved data quality & account growth, find out the impact of implementing a Digital Account Planning Solution.
Webinar: The Changing Role of Technology in Key Account Management
The Changing Role of Technology in Key Account Management – Webinar by DemandFarm Average number of buying interactions today in a B2B sales process have surged by 58.8% since the pandemic (Forrester 2021 Sales Enablement Year End Review). As Key Account Planning grows complex with account-centric interactions, technology that can continuously improve based on intelligent insights becomes a necessity. Decision-making will soon be based on Data, Analytics and Artificial Intelligence (AI), not on intuition and experience. Artificial Intelligence takes into account thousands of sales engagements within a CRM to provide contextual insights from your data. In the future, AI will most likely evolve to a stage where AI capabilities are embedded within Account Planning tools and can guide client engagements. This webinar will address some challenges and opportunities that arise out of this. Agenda The role of Artificial Intelligence, Data and Analytics in Key Account Planning Intelligent and Contextual Insights Evolving role of Key Account Management teams Augmented Intelligence vs Artificial Intelligence Speakers Milind Katti Co-Founder & COO DemandFarm Rick Bradberry Principal Analyst & Exec. Advisor B2B Sales Forrester Joshua Gregg Vice President, Strategic Accounts The Qt Company Michael McCarthy Senior Business & Technology Consultant, Sales Enablement Duke Energy Watch the webinar on-demand:
Strategic Account Map: Account Mapping Process for Strategic Account Management
Buying decisions in companies are getting increasingly complicated. Recently, Gartner has reported that “the typical buying group for a complex B2B solution involves 6 to 10 decision makers.” What involved a one-person decision some years ago, now has multiple decision-makers or stakeholders. In addition, there are different types of such decision-makers. Add to this the number of key accounts you have to manage and keep track of, and suddenly you’re overwhelmed! Patricia Fripp, author and presentation skills authority says, “Technology doesn’t run an enterprise; relationships do!” So, while you may have CRM systems in place to track all your data, the biggest drawback is just that – a CRM system only tracks data! How do you record usable information on the key decision makers, their preferred communication styles, the key account’s major pain points, and all other intel you gather over time? Enter – Strategic Account Mapping! What is Strategic Account Mapping? In its simplest form, a strategic account map is a visual representation of key contacts, decision makers and relationship dynamics within a key account’s organization. Looking for an easy way to identify key accounts? Use this cheat sheet! Why go through the trouble of this exercise? Because relationships matter. And with business relationships, you want to maintain a relationship with the organization as much as you want to maintain a relationship with a key person or a strategic decision maker. In the words of American billionaire entrepreneur Mark Cuban – “Business happens over years and years. Value is measured in the total upside of a business relationship, not by how much you squeezed out in any one deal.” The fact is that people leave, but your relationship with the key account doesn’t have to end there. This means it’s important to have several points of contact within the organization and keep track of all the key information you need to keep your most important customers happy. Thereby increasing sales and revenue! Within a key account’s organization, you may need different points of contact for different activities. There could be one point of contact that’s essential for maintaining the relationship, another may be essential on account of their decision-making authority, and you could need others to confirm important details or pitch ideas to. All these are important for different reasons. Just identifying whom to reach out to isn’t enough. To optimize time and increase efficiency, it’s best to know who the decision-makers are. In this way, you can start developing those all-important business relationships. And cultivate them in a way that you can at some point go beyond the people and be strongly linked with the organization. With all this as background, you can see why this cannot be a one-time project. Strategic account mapping is, in fact, just the beginning of the business relationship. It is the starting point of the map that gets bigger, with more details and more layers. It should be a continuous building process to which details keep being added. How do you add details? When a new point of contact is established. This could be because the original point of contact is separating from the organization or has been transferred or promoted. It could also be on account of the contact being on long leave or taking a hiatus. When another department in your organization has collected data through surveys or interviews. By browsing the key account’s social profiles, periodically checking their websites for new appointments, new launches etc. and scanning the news for announcements about them. Before or during any major projects undertaken, renewal of service contracts or similar activities where new information or details may be discussed. Strategic account planning is just good business practice. When it is consciously and actively made a focus, it helps you build better and stronger connections with your key accounts. Since details are constantly tracked and updated, a strategic account map can be the source of reference for every new interaction. It helps to avoid contacting the same person over and over again, making others feel side-lined. Knowing exactly whom to reach out to begin a new conversation makes your communication more targeted and relevant. You, therefore, appear current and better-informed, earning major credit for your organization! Importance of Strategic Account Mapping for Key Account Management Even today, the 80:20 rule applied to business holds true. That is, 80% of your revenue comes from 20% of your clients. Combining this principle with the knowledge that client retention is less expensive than client acquisition, key account management becomes vitally important. And it all starts with strategic account mapping. Strategic account mapping is the first step of Key Account Management. It should begin with the first interaction with the key account and continue to be built and reviewed with every deal. Strategic account maps are relevant and important to every department that has a connection with your key account. Your sales teams are, of course, the biggest beneficiaries, but strategic account mapping can be equally invaluable to marketers and customer service representatives among others. Top 5 Benefits of Strategic Account Mapping Some of the major benefits of Strategic Account Mapping for Key Account Management are: 1. Client retention Despite all the data on customer retention v/s customer acquisition, only 18% of companies focus on customer retention. This offers an excellent opportunity! Since the major objective of a strategic account plan is to map the important and influential players of key accounts, this information can then be used to communicate and deal with them effectively. In-depth and current information about pain points, priorities and influencers can make a big difference in your dealings with key accounts. With this information, your teams are able to offer services and solutions that are pertinent and appropriate and that match the key accounts’ requirements, thus showcasing your knowledge and interest in them. 2. Long-term relationships Your relationship with a key account may begin with one point of contact or a friendly face that has helped you get a foothold. But to manage
DemandFarm is ISO/IEC 27001:2013 and ISO/IEC 27701:2019 certified
DemandFarm is happy to announce that it complies with international Information Security Management System standards. The ISO/IEC 27001:2013 has been awarded for meeting internationally-recognized requirements for establishing, implementing, maintaining and improving Information Security Management System within a company. DemandFarm now assures you with a higher quality and higher level of trust, reduces the risk of cyber attacks and information security breaches. With the ISO/IEC 27701:2019 certification, DemandFarm has also followed the privacy extension. You can now trust DemandFarm even more when it comes to managing personal information and adhering to international standards of privacy regulations. Examination Scope: Information Security Management System (ISMS) Certification: ISO/IEC 27001:2013 (link to certificate) Examination Scope: Information Security Management System (ISMS) Certification: ISO/IEC 27701:2019 (link to certificate) We are committed to ensuring information security at all levels and maintaining the certifications!
Key Account Management Strategy: 4 Successful Account Management Strategies for Account Planning
A major portion of a company’s sales typically come from a small group of customers. Or, as the saying goes, around 80% of a company’s profit will come from 20% of its clients or accounts. We’ve all heard this management adage time and again. However, it continues to hold for many businesses around the world, no matter their size or the industry in which they operate. That’s why it’s critical to have proper strategies in place to ensure you, as a company, manage 20% of your clients with extra care than you normally would. How do you do that? By strategizing and picking the best account management practices for your firm. But despite the best account managers, Key Account Management strategies and approaches are failing. The main reasons behind a failed key account management strategy are a few critical mistakes that organizations tend to make. Those include a misguided selection of key accounts in the first place, overburdening key account managers, and wasting of resources, according to a study by Gartner published earlier this year. By resolving these issues, sales teams can greatly improve their key account growth, the study adds. source: Gartner What is Key Account Planning? Key Account Planning or Strategic Account Planning is a business process that entirely deals with the administration of these strategic key accounts. The best way to administer key accounts is to nurture them into long-term relationships. Key accounts are not just those that are bringing in the most money to your company right now, but can also offer the most promising prospects for growth. The Key Account Management process, in short, involves employing key account managers to maintain, develop and nurture those key accounts, and strategic customer relationships. It requires more in-depth and specialized handling than the role performed by the larger sales team. The popular saying is that in sales, you sell. But when it comes to Key Account Management, you help customers buy. What are the benefits of Account Planning? Key account planning offers a few important benefits for businesses, especially small and medium-sized ones, that make it a must-have. Account Planning is considered one of the most effective ways to both grow revenue and safeguard current sales. In other words, with Account Planning, in one stroke, an organization can protect its present while simultaneously working towards the future. By using Account Planning strategies, your business gains opportunities to cross-sell and upsell additional products or services to existing customers. Can you do this without Account Planning? Perhaps. But it would be a haphazard process. Account Planning ensures that your key account managers or sales reps know exactly which products or services to pitch, and which existing client to pitch it to. As we mentioned above, Account Planning also allows you to protect your existing customer base. It helps curb customer churn. When you use Account Planning strategies, your key account managers and sales rep are armed with the right tools. They can offer personalized solutions to customers who matter. In the process, what occurs is a mutually beneficial transaction between your organization and your key accounts. How do you use key account planning in your business? In the rest of this article, we give you a starting point by examining four best account planning strategies that will benefit your organization. Four Successful Key Account Management Strategies for Account Planning 1. Select the right key accounts How do you identify your key accounts? That should be the first question that comes to your mind, before you can even think about what Key Account Management strategies you need to implement. Key accounts or strategic customers aren’t only the ones that are bringing you the largest chunk of revenue. There are several other parameters that you need to consider before you can designate a client or customer as a key account. Here’s a look at some of those factors you need to consider to arrive at your own list of key accounts or strategic customers: Historic data: How much revenue has an account brought in over the years? How has its ratio of contribution to your company’s profits/revenue expanded (or shrunk) with time? Answering questions like these give you a more accurate and comprehensive description of key accounts in terms of revenue contribution. Growth potential: Now that you have an idea of how much revenue an account has historically contributed to, the next step is to map out its growth potential. How much more can your company earn from an account? Is there enough long-term potential? Do you believe that the organization is financially sound and will remain so for the foreseeable future? Value potential: Does the company offer you opportunities for growth that’s not necessarily based on numbers? For example, does the company have an extensive network or connections that you can tap into? Does it have access to resources you may need, or come with a stellar industry reputation that makes them a value add to your portfolio of customers? Match potential: Of course, it goes without saying that any account you are looking to classify as a key account must be a fit with your own company. For example, the solutions you currently offer (and plan to in future) must, obviously, be a match with what the other organization wants. Often, the culture of a strategic customer also ought to match your own, as it makes it easier to do business with them. As you implement a selection strategy to identify your strategic customers or key accounts, it’s very important to remember not to go overboard. It may be tempting to create a large portfolio of key accounts under the assumption that it boosts your company’s credentials. But the process is meant to be a narrow, selective one. You don’t want to end up with a long list of key accounts that may not be strategic for your company. When you do that, you run the risk of having to remove or demote some accounts, and that can cause unnecessary
9 Steps to Build a Successful Key Account Management Process
This ebook contains 9 steps to go over key account planning, setting up, implementing and reviewing a key account management process. They include analysis to make a profit, understanding your customer, assessing your relationship health, drawing up a key account plan blueprint and getting into action with a plan. Find out more about resource planning for your key accounts, improving communication with internal and external stakeholders. Monitor, control and review the Key Account Management process to determine its success.
Key account management skills for the new paradigm
Account planning has evolved from the wine and dine times to providing strategic solutions – and shows no signs of stopping. The tribal knowledge present in the teams can become enterprise memory with digital KAM and narrate a story of the client’s needs to the Key Account Management team – allowing them find innovative ways of meeting them. This means key account managers can focus on proactively understanding and trying to solve client’s problem, instead of trying to keep the records straight. The changes to working conditions all over the world provide another reason to relook at skills required to manage key accounts – the old ways are not relevant anymore. The changes to the way we work have been so drastic that in a couple of years, organizations that don’t have any sort of key account management practice that relies on structured data – will not be able to succeed. With structured information about clients and insights derived from AI and ML tools, Account Managers can provide the necessary human touch efficiently. The key customer representatives want to succeed in their positions – and are looking for strategic partners who can empathize and help them achieve business goals. By treating key accounts as strategic partners, organizations can see the real value of the business relationship – where the skills of account managers are enhanced by the tools at their disposal.
Predicting the next move in sales and account management – the AI and machine learning way
It is essential for organizations to understand which accounts are ‘strategic partners’ and the relationships where they act as a tactical vendor. Once the distinction is made, treating the strategic partners as key accounts requires a thorough understanding of the customer’s business, structure, details about individual business units, strategic initiatives, and management changes. While having this data is essential, using it to create solutions that create more value for the customer or answer the customer’s business challenges is what fortifies relationships – and AI and ML help in this regard, by identifying areas of focus and/or concern. The intelligence present in the organization about its key customers can be termed as ‘tribal knowledge’, and it resides in the way clients and key account managers interact, while adding value to the relationship. This seemingly unstructured information can be captured into an enterprise memory which can be seamlessly used by multiple members of a team to manage the same key account. When properly structured, the data can be used by AI and ML tools for Key Account Management – and ease the process of collaborating and building relationships with the customer organization. They provide insights which help in making account plans which lead to revenue goals, specific actions, and timelines. Every key account will have unique situations that necessitate customised solutions or approaches and require a fair amount of cognitive thinking. The insights that AI and ML tools provide help in the process, but the days of tools providing viable courses of action are not that far off.
Account Planning – A Strategic Approach to Grow Your Key Accounts
What is Account Planning? Account planning is the process of building strategic plans to improve value-driven relationships with your key customers that can help in long-term development and retention, thereby maximizing the revenue potential. Effective account plans help account managers to gain a more in-depth understanding of the client. Account Planning has been around for years. Did you know that 65% of a company’s business comes from existing customers? Or that 80% of your future profits are likely to come from 20% of current customers? In other words, building and cultivating healthy relationships with clients is one of the most effective pathways to exponential growth. With so much at stake, it’s no wonder that 61% of companies consider strategic account management as the key to increasing revenue, profits, and customer satisfaction. While the importance of account management is unquestionable, its implementation leaves a lot to be desired even today. 71% of companies believe that sales improved by less than 26% since launching their Account Management programs. KAM Glossary: Crucial Account Management Terms Explained Why is Account Planning essential for your business to grow? A recent Account Planning Book of Evidence study surveyed 1034 people from 62 countries to determine why organizations undertake the account planning exercise. Most of the results were unsurprising: Better Win rate (75%) Increased understanding of customers’ business (72%) Shorter sales cycles (58%) Better customer loyalty (55%) Increased deal size (49%) Better executive access (47%) Identify non-competitive deals (27%) While this gives us an insight into the benefits of Account Planning as a whole, it also goes to show that there is some ambiguity when it comes to defining the overall purpose of account planning. A better win rate is too vague and can apply to all key account management processes. ‘Increased understanding of customers’ business’ is important but it doesn’t talk about outcomes. Download Now: 9 Steps to Build a Rock-Solid Key Account Management Process Purpose of Account Planning There are a couple of reasons why companies struggle with effective account management. The first is that technological innovation has shifted the landscape across departments and industries, and account management has also changed with it. As a result, companies that weren’t able to keep up with changing trends in account management have suffered. Apart from technology shifts, there is another reason why some companies struggle with effective SAM (Strategic Account Management). The key to effective account management lies in sound Account Planning. Many companies either ignore account planning or do account planning for the sake of it, without a clear understanding of its purpose and expected outcomes. Without effective account planning, account managers are simply unable to create the kind of impression on their clients that they need to. We decided that we needed to get a better understanding of the role of account planning, the technology trends in account management, and the way forward for organizations. Account Planning Template – The Key to Revenue Growth We sat down for an in-depth discussion with Mr. A. Ghosh, Founder, and CEO of Netfotech Solutions. Netfotech is a cutting-edge IT services company that works with clients of all sizes and all across the globe including India, the UK, and Singapore. They also provide many solutions from social e-commerce Solutions, big data consulting, web site development to web hosting, mobile application development, BI & Analytics, and Robotics Process Automation. With such a diverse clientele and a broad range of services, the effective strategic account management plan has emerged as a key growth driver for Netfotech. Here are some key excerpts from our conversation. Mr. Ghosh believes that there are two major reasons to do strategic account planning. Together, they define both the essence and the ultimate purpose of the sales account planning exercise. The first and foremost priority of Account Planning is to ensure that the gross margin in the account is consistent from one year to the next. It’s very easy, especially in a services business, for the cost of client servicing to increase without a corresponding increase in revenue. A detailed account planning template helps to overcome this problem by ensuring that the gross margin stays consistent. Read Now: Account Planning Template – Step by Step Strategic Account Planning The second major reason for Account Planning is to strategically grow the account. Cross-selling and up-selling are some of the easiest ways of maximizing revenue and it is only possible through effective account planning and management. The probability of selling a new service to an existing customer is between 60 to 70% whereas the probability of selling to a new prospect is only 5 to 20%. Together, these two reasons, maintaining profitability and horizontal growth, are the fundamental reason why account planning exists in the first place. In search of an Account Planning Template to grow your Strategic Accounts? Look no further! Overcoming Account Planning Challenges The first step in account planning is an in-depth understanding of the client and their needs. Unfortunately, this is the step at which most account planners falter. If the understanding of the client is superficial, effective account planning is simply not possible. According to Mr. Ghosh, there are three major challenges that most account managers face while trying to get an accurate and comprehensive understanding of their clients. 1. Lack of Ground-Level Intel The devil, as they say, lies in the details. In many cases, account planners simply don’t have access to key strategic information about the client. For instance, a client that is currently using our website development services may soon be looking to get an analytics set-up in place. Unless account managers have access to this kind of strategic information, they may lose an opportunity that is there for the taking. The only way to solve this conundrum is by building closer, more meaningful relationships with clients. 2. Lack of Connection to the Right Stakeholder Sometimes, account managers are unable to get a more comprehensive understanding of the client simply because the person they are in touch with is not
The secret to winning a key account for long-term
Key account retention, when seen from the eyes of vendor partners, is not just about proving the solution that was asked, but to understand the client’s business and help them grow. But with the fragmented state of data on customers, it is difficult to understand what drives the decision making on the customer’s side. With the right strategy and the right tools, however, key account managers can ensure they have relevant data which allows them to work smart. With proper data about the client in place, Account Managers can demonstrate value to the key account by knowing their business and industry, helping them set goals, develop corresponding strategies and create a concrete, actionable plan. With properly organised data, even a new member of the accounts team can start on an even keel with the information available. With proper data, reaching out to key accounts regularly becomes a meaningful activity, which works towards enhancing the relationship. At the end of the day, technology enables us to do what we already do better. People buy from people they trust, and with sophisticated key account management tools – the task of establishing trust can be simplified. Also, with AI and ML being used increasingly in Key Account Management solutions, we are seeing the software provide helpful suggestions, touch points, key focus areas and more. Watch the complete DemandFarm Fireside Chat to learn how your organization can have a long and fruitful relationship its key customers here