Tag: Growth

Harness the Power of Big Data to Surge in Key Account Planning & Account Growth

The use of big data and artificial intelligence (AI) in account-based marketing has revolutionized the way organizations approach their marketing strategies. Predictive analytics that utilizes historical data to identify future trends and behaviors, can help organizations optimize their communication strategies and make data-driven decisions to drive growth to stay ahead of their competitors.  The big data edge Predictive analytics through big data and AI is a game-changer for key account planning. By utilizing predictive analytics, organizations can better understand consumer behaviors and trends and predict future shifts. This empowers them to develop more effective communication strategies, optimize resources and spend, qualify and prioritize leads, and retain customers. With the integration of advanced communication tools and measurement capabilities, organizations can stay competitive and drive growth in today’s data-driven environment. In the past, organizations relied on data-driven communication to understand the long-term impact of their campaigns on sales. However, with the evolution of communication analytics, organizations are now able to move beyond aggregate data and understand user-level interactions. Multi-touch attribution (MTA) models, for instance, enable organizations to gain a better understanding of consumer paths to purchase. The need for predictive analytics and big data With predictive analytics and big data, organizations can understand consumer behaviors and trends better, and predict future shifts with better accuracy. By leveraging machine learning and AI, organizations can combine insights generated through various datasets, algorithms, and models to develop more effective communication strategies. There are three primary models associated with predictive analytics: cluster models, propensity models, and recommendations filtering. These models enable organizations to segment audiences, evaluate consumer likelihood to act, and understand where there might be additional sales opportunities. They can enhance effectiveness by updating their playbook to provide a better overview of consumer behavior, optimize resources and spend, qualify and prioritize leads, and retain customers. With so much data available, organizations require advanced communication tools and measurement capabilities to take full advantage of predictive analytics. Unified communication measurement, communication analytics software, and AI and machine learning are essential features that enable organizations to act on insights in real-time and serve dynamic content automatically. Developing a key accounts-focused culture As every customer or account has a unique persona and behavior, developing an account-centric culture is a top priority for every company. However, tracking progress can be challenging without effective processes. Initially, companies relied on CRM for opportunity management, but account planning tools have since been created to provide intelligence into their key accounts. With the evolving environment, these tools have also had to adapt to new opportunities and help enterprises resolve their existing challenges. Analytics can play a precise role in account centricity by providing detailed insights to prepare proposals/quotes depending on each key account’s requirements. Enterprises can also review target achievements and create reports that facilitate decision-making and strategy formulation. Analytics can identify future trends and opportunities in the industry, as well as insights on the non-captured value of a customer, which may add to the economic value derived from customer profitability analysis. AI for leveling the playing field Businesses of all sizes are recognizing the need to adopt a digital approach to key account management. Small B2B organizations, in particular, face a tough challenge as they do not have the same resources or brand equity as their larger competitors. As a result, they often rely on building strong relationships and trust with their clients through great work and word-of-mouth referrals. However, the COVID-19 pandemic threw a wrench in this approach, as remote work made it challenging to engage with clients physically. To address this challenge, many small B2B organizations have shifted their focus to digital key account management. This approach involves creating and implementing a digital account and relationship strategy to retain and grow key relationships in a remote world. Here are some factors that businesses should consider when making this shift. Data-driven approach to relationship strategy and management should be a top priority. Businesses should collect data and use it to inform decision-making that produces positive outcomes for their organization. This approach is already used by consultants to help clients be successful, and businesses can turn that lens on themselves to see how they can increase their and customer lifetime value. Culture and people change during a digital approach requires proactive and sustained communication across a variety of stakeholder groups. To be successful, businesses must influence broad behavioral change across their company and make it stick by aligning incentives and measurement with the business outcomes that they value. Conducting quarterly business reviews (QBRs) with key accounts can shed light on the importance of the process, and sales teams can prime the rest of the organization for the same.  Enabling teams with the right tools is a critical factor in making the shift to digital key account management. Even with a strong approach and workforce, businesses must have the infrastructure and tools in place to make the shift successful. Investing in infrastructure that uplifts the workforce and removes roadblocks and overhead is crucial to supporting this change. Despite the benefits of digital key account management, making the shift can come with its set of challenges. For example, businesses may face resistance to change or struggle to adopt new processes. It’s crucial to identify and address these challenges early on to ensure a smooth transition. Adopting a digital approach to key account management is essential for businesses looking to compete in a remote world. By prioritizing a data-driven approach, culture and people change, and investing in the right tools and infrastructure, businesses can make a successful transition to digital key account management. While challenges may arise, addressing them early on can help ensure a smooth and successful shift. Watch Now: Stories on Successful Digital Key Account Management Transformation    Challenges to big data adoption in Key Account Management Big data has the potential to significantly improve key account management by providing insights to make better decisions. However, challenges can arise when collecting and managing large amounts of data. One of the main challenges

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

Account Planning Template – Step by Step Guide to Strategic Account Planning

Account Planning Template Existing customers are a critical revenue source for every organization. Meeting growth targets requires sales leaders to build robust strategic account plans and establish well-defined account management processes in the organization and this is where account planning templates come into the picture. Having a customizable template for account planning not only helps retain customers but also enables account teams to identify, develop, and execute growth opportunities within their account base. KAM Glossary: Crucial Account Management Terms Explained What is Account Planning? Account planning is a process of building strategic plans to improve value-driven relationships with key customers that can help in long-term development and retention, thereby maximizing the revenue potential. Effective account plans and templates help account managers gain a more in-depth understanding of the client. The 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%) The Account plan contains critical information about the prospect that every sales rep should know before even thinking about making the initial phone call. Capturing this information down in a concise, structured way helps the salesperson to focus on what is important about the account and how it aligns with your company’s offering. Having a plan can help you go one step further, give you the edge over a competitor, or deliver the crucial piece of data that can close the deal. Simply put, the Strategic Account Plan is the blueprint of the sale. Here, is a template to create quick and effective account plans that help account managers win the game. Account Planning Template 1. Account Overview Documenting the Client’s landscape is important to give a bird’s eye view of their business and general information to the account managers for them to dive deeper. Also, this information must answer all the basic questions about the client like What the client sells, who are their clients, what size are they, where are they located, and much more. 2. Account Segmentation Account Segmentation will help the sales team segment the client accounts into different buckets. This enables the salespeople to come up with the right strategic action planning based on the account positions. You can segment accounts based on the account health score to understand them objectively. 3. Account Financials Understanding the basic financials of the client organization will help identify your potential revenue sources. Also, listing the specific business units and geographic regions of the clients will enable you to know the areas to which you can cater and estimate the Total Annual Revenue potential from the client. 4. Whitespace analysis Whitespace mapping is the virtual representation of data to uncover hidden white space opportunities to target. It helps you to identify the gap between the products/services your customers require vs the products/services you offer. Understanding the pain points at different levels and offering the right solution helps increase revenue from the existing customers. The Sales team can understand current engagements with accounts and explore possible opportunities & whitespaces with the white space analysis. Learn More: Opportunity Planner by DemandFarm boosts tracking capabilities in 65+ opportunities for Dairy MAX 5. Relationship mapping Relationship mapping helps to visualize all the key stakeholders in one place. This mapping tool – org chart software also helps salespeople to explore detailed information about the contacts of the accounts on the budget control, influences they have on each other, etc., You can Know the organizational hierarchy of the accounts to better understand the relationships and the influences between the contacts. 6. Competitor Analysis Competitor Analysis allows you to better understand the market, potential, and behavior of the customers. This analysis with a bunch of data gives a company an advantage over the competitors to grow by developing new market strategies. With competitor analysis, the sales team can also understand the strengths and weaknesses of competitors along with the analysis of customer spend vs wallet share. 7. Communication Planning Capturing all the past interactions between the client and the team will help to sketch the communication pattern that can add value in planning the overall communication strategy. It gives you a year-wise verdict on whether you are in super touch or you need to work more on the volume of meetings. It’s an extremely important exercise to improve your communication strategy to maximize ROI. 8. Account Management KPIs Defining the Account management KPIs is critical to measure the progress of accounts over time, make adjustments in the process & stay on track, solve problems that are in the way, and tackle new opportunities in the accounts. It also helps in analyzing account planning patterns over time. Learn More: 11 Crucial Account Management KPIs that dictate Success Why do you need a Sales Account Planning template? Creating a Strategic Account Management template is not an easy exercise. It can’t be done in an hour before a meeting. So there is a need for a template that can help account managers build quick and effective plans. Most importantly, it gives you a better framework of the data needed to understand the customer. Knowing more about your target and being equipped with insider account knowledge of the account is one of the biggest advantages a salesperson can have. DemandFarm’s Account Management Software DemandFarm’s Key Account Management Software enables dynamic account planning capability natively inside Salesforce CRM and integrates to all other leading CRMS to make account planning ridiculously easy. It helps in achieving a deeper understanding of your Key accounts through improved data visualization and qualitative analysis. Our key account management software empowers companies to visualize, plan, and drive growth in Key Account Sales. Our digital account management experts will be more than happy to guide you. Book a demo today.

White Space Opportunity : Your potential areas for growth

White Space Opportunity The ultimate goal of key account management is to recognize opportunities for growth in their strategic accounts. At DemandFarm we have designed a simple yet powerful framework to identify potential business growth through white space opportunity. What is a White Space? Are you giving all your focus to new opportunities or keeping an eye on current customers to see if there are any emerging opportunities? There is a gap between when your sales professional finalizes a deal with a new customer and start fresh with a new prospect. To fill out this gap, did you know that it costs 10 times less to sell to an existing customer than to acquire a new one. The gap between the products or services that your existing customer has purchased and the other products or services that your company has to offer is known as white space. The goal of this identification is to seek growth of key accounts which is done through existing solutions and relationships. Failure to realize these opportunities, leaves a lot of money on the table and also allows competition to sneak in. These white space opportunities can be unearthed through creation of a visual white space map and it’s careful analysis. Here is how it works. Step 1: Identification of Offering Identify and list down all the products/services/solutions that your company sells to the customer. Let’s call them OFFERINGS. It is advisable to not exceed more than 10 offerings. If your company has more, try to have sub offering classification and club more than one sub offerings to a single parent offering. Step 2: Identification of Buying Centers Identify and list down ‘Buying Centers’ in the account. Buying Centers are those units in the account that can buy your offering(s) independently. They could be various divisions of the account or functions in an account or territories in the account. They can also be a combination of these three. This is tricky. It requires a deep understanding of the account in terms of organizational structure, power centers, decision-making process, budget allocation, etc. Therefore, this step is not static. Buying Centers could change or get added over a while. If you don’t know the account well, it’s ok to start with just one. Since it is tricky, let me explain with an example. Let’s say your key account is a large global bank. Divisions may include the following: Retail Banking, Wholesale Banking, Investment Banking, Merchant Banking, Asset Management, Wealth Management. Functions may include: Finance, IT, Sales, Marketing, Operations, HR Territories may include: North America, Europe, Asia, Africa, Latin America. Now depending on what your offerings are, Buying Centers could be: Retail Marketing, Asia Operations, IT infrastructure, Asia, Wealth North America. You get the drift. One thumb rule is Buying Center should be able to independently buy at least one of your offerings on its own. Step 3: Creation of Account Landscape Create a matrix/grid using these two lists – Offerings versus Buying Centers. I call it Account Landscape. Here is an illustration. Step 4: Insertion of Opportunities Data in the Account Landscape Mark all the areas where you already do business in the Account Landscape with opportunities data. This could be all ‘Closed-Won’ opportunities in the past 12 to 24 months. A view of ‘Closed-Lost’ Opportunities is also helpful to know where you did not win. Also, of course, active opportunities in pursuit now. Step 5: Analysis of the relevance of Offerings Examining each offering and deciding its relevance in this account is the next step in white space analysis. Not every offering of yours is relevant to all accounts. It is very helpful if you can also assess the intensity of competition where relevance is high. Similarly, assess each buying center for its attractiveness. A simple RAG (Red-Green-Amber) analysis will do. Look at the illustration below Step 6: Identification of White Space Opportunities Now, it will be easy to identify this white space opportunity for business growth. Start with ‘Green’ boxes and see vertically and horizontally where growth can happen. There could be opportunities to ‘mine’ for more revenue in existing projects. In the illustration above, I have identified 3 of them. Highly relevant offering with highly attractive buying centers gives me two of these opportunities. It also helps that we are already engaged with other offerings in these buying centers. As you can see, a methodical approach to unearthing new opportunities to grow your accounts as illustrated above is very impactful. At DemandFarm, we have made this process easy by building these tools inside your CRMs. We believe that the Account Managers are the heroes. Their expertise, experience and domain knowledge is what matters the most when it comes to handling key accounts. So at DemandFarm, we try to do our best to equip them with account management tools and frameworks to help them visualize better and to make their thinking strategic, focused and cohesive.

How to Ensure Your Key Accounts are in Good Health – Top View

It is all very well to think and expect that your C-Suite in your Key Account Management structure will live up to your expectations vis-à-vis Key Account Health and they will know every little bit of detail that needs to be known. However, if you are using traditional health monitoring methods, then this is next to impossible. After all, when your Key Accounts scale up, how much is one Director or a handful of your top people going to know about the details?It is, therefore, necessary to have a transparent system that addresses the 3 points listed below: Is your KAM team cued into the key goals and success parameters of their clients? ‍Sharing the above in black and white with the team assigned for KAM Sales is very important to measure the performance of the Key Accounts. This adds to the building of trust and retaining of the Key Account as the client sees your team as his trusted advisors, who are working with him towards a common goal. Unfortunately, though, this is not the case. Many Key Account Managers are not aware of the tangible goals or have not got it in writing. Are the contracts well documented and broken down in small, understandable, easily accessible dockets? ‍The answer to this is usually, NO. Contracts are big 30 pager documents which are lost in the grind and dug up only before the all-important reviews or during a crisis. The Strategic Account Management team often forgets or is not aware of the small details on say Page 24 that a client may refer to when he is not happy. At that time, it is too late. As the top management, it is important that you have your entire team completely cued into each and every detail of the contract, however, big the contract. The best way to do this is to document the contract into small-sized dockets accessible to all for regular browsing. These need to be discussed and rehearsed during every weekly meeting for quick recall from the team. This practice ensures that the goals listed down and well discussed are also well followed and achieved. Has your team put down in writing clear internal goals that increase the probability of retaining that key account? ‍Internal goals have to be quantified to measure what the team is up against. The account health as defined above depends on the frustrations in the account management that crop up. It helps you, as a Director, to quantify these frustrations and discuss this with the team clearly, so that you can all put your heads together to improve the situation. Generic, non-tangible goals and performance measures are not enough; they should have a strong metric system in place that can be easy, transparently monitored from anywhere. Team members need to have access to this system. Clear, measurable insights into Key Accounts are known to increase not just customer retention, but also positively impact profitability by 25 to 125% DemandFarm’s Key Account Management software helps you and your Key Account Management team to quantify these goals, spot the gaps and improve them for better performance in the relationship mapping and profitability of Key Accounts. Also read our blog on Key Account Management VS Regular Account Management.

Account Planner – Simple is powerful and beautiful too

Key Account Planning over the decades has become complex and theoretical. Most Account Managers just check the box by filling in the template at the beginning of the year and forget about it. In some companies, I have seen the worse. Good Account Managers (who achieve their numbers) just ignore the templates. 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. In fact, 71% of companies believe that sales improved by less than 26% since launching their Account Management programs. This observation made us launch ‘Account Planner Pro’ last month while we already have ‘Account Planner Enterprise’ with all the bells and whistles. Account Planner is simple, beautiful, and thus powerful. This is the easiest account planning ever if you use Salesforce or Microsoft Dynamics. This is an one pager app inside your CRM where: Zoom in to your account to build an Account Landscape in 60 seconds. Map opportunities to know where your current engagements with the customer are and therefore where are ‘whitespaces’ of growth. Map competition & relationships. Create a plan with revenue goals and activities. Track the progress I promise you that Account Planning was never this easy. Salesforce Account Planning and MS Dynamics Account Planning are at your fingertips. Go ahead TRY – Ask your CRM admin to install