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.
Key Account Management Software: 4 Features to look out for
Key Accounts are complex, global entities and it would be impossible for even the most accomplished Key Account Manager to keep track of and govern the Account manually. There is a need for software and tools for Key Account Management to help the Key Account Managers realize the optimal potential of the Account. To that end, here is a round-up of some of the must-have features of a KAM Enablement technology – whether it is a tool, software, or app: 1. Visual Representation to aid Strategic Decision Making Because of the way the human brain processes information, a visual representation always helps in simplifying complex data. Visualization is a quick, easy way to make strategic decisions in a universal manner, and execute accordingly. When it comes to key accounts, you need to have a landscape view of available white space opportunities and scope continuously for business and value creation opportunities. A visual representation in a KAM technology enabler or software can not only help you see the bigger picture, but also analyze and improve your selling points, and explore opportunities with existing key accounts. 2. Organizational Hierarchy In B2B selling, you are not selling to one person. It is usually a group of decision-makers, who influence the deal based on their position within the organization. In-depth awareness of the organizational hierarchy is, needless to say, a must. A comprehensive account management would go beyond to even highlight formal and informal affiliations, disposition towards the brand, etc. It will indicate which relationships need nurturing, by whom, in a timely way. A Key Account Management Software should clearly indicate whom to connect with, at each stage of the selling process, with an added option to make behavioral notes about each contact, so you make the most of the time invested in building relationships. 3. Data Consolidation and Management Imagine a situation where half of your key account’s data is in spreadsheets, and the other half is spread over PPT’s and word docs, and elsewhere. How inconvenient would that be? Key Account Management software must provide a consolidated platform, which collates data from varied sources, in a consistent format, in one place, so that the right internal stakeholders can access them and be on the same page. With a central repository that everyone can access in real-time, the additional headache of version control is avoided. It will help you focus, and invest your valuable time in strategic account planning and collaboration, instead of laboring over data collation and documentation. 4. Analysis and Tracking When you are managing Key Accounts, you need to keep track of Key account Plans and goals. A Key Account Management Software must help you with an actionable approach to tenure-based plans, along with easy-to-access tabs on the account plan screen. A good module that can help achieve these must provide you with insights to check progress on activities so that you can make the right strategic calls at the right time. In an ideal key account management software, your company’s sales process is expressed visually in a pipeline form, showing where all deals stand in which stages, and each stage subdivided into activities and tasks. Learn more about how KAM Enablement will help you grow your business in 2017. Download the e-book here.
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.
Do you know the Importance of Key Account Management Software?
Are your key accounts dear to you? I understand. For most b2b, key accounts contribute the majority of revenue. Thus, their success is dependent on how they keep and grow these key accounts. B2B leaders would leverage a Key Account Management Software to enable this imperative. Which brings us to the question, how does software help grow key accounts? Account Intelligence Where should an account manager go for account intelligence? A company’s financial information and growth details, Key Employees with their titles/ social profile/ function/ contact detail, Top management changes, organization structure, Important announcements or news and other business initiatives? The account planning tool provides all the above account intelligence in a matter of clicks. Account Understanding The software also helps the Account Manager: To understand the level of relationship with the account – Strategic or Tactical or in between (cooperative/interdependent). To understand the attractiveness of the account through parameters like future growth, type of long-term contracts, and level of relationship mappings. Conduct competitor analysis of the account. Thus, helping the Key Account Managers build the account landscape to map the products/services to buying centers. In turn, identifying ‘White spaces‘ of growth. Account Planning The software makes annual key account planning easier by providing all the data for planning and providing ready-made templates to complete their plan. The plan will include strategy, activity planning, and revenue goal setting. A good Key Account Management software also helps the Account Manager to present and track the plans anytime anywhere. Account Collaboration Key Account Management software provides a perfect platform for various internal stakeholders often globally spread to collaborate on planning, activities, and analysis of the key accounts. The software also serves as a single source of truth for all account-related data. Analytics Key Account Management software provides the Account Manager with analytics and dashboards to make the right decisions and take the right actions. Some of the key metrics it provides are, Revenue target vs achievement, Account growth, farming and mining effectiveness, Pipeline, For the executive leadership, the software provides powerful analytics using aggregated data of all key accounts. It helps answer – what do all the account plans together indicate, which product/solution you won/lost industry-wise, and much such analytics to enable effective decision making. Productivity Account manager runs the risk of doing many repetitive tasks that are non-revenue bearing. Automating repetitive tasks improves the productivity of Account Managers. Some examples are creating the account plans, presenting the plan directly from the software, exporting account info pdf, preparing for QBRs, tracking activities and financials, generating reports, notifications, and reminders, ease of creation, and consumption of data across devices. Platform The importance of Key Account Management software is that it is a single platform for account managers to create and consume data. It provides account intelligence, account financials, opportunities, contacts, account plans, account engagements, and dashboards in a single platform. The platforms provide a single source of truth and save the account manager the hassle of logging in to various enterprise applications for accessing data. All in all, Key Account Management software enables account growth through deeper analysis, better planning, and reliable governance. In the future, this will get even more powerful with artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies. A Good Key Account Management Software A good key account management software helps analyze, plan and govern the strategic accounts of a b2b company. It is used to build account landscape and organization charts easily using CRM data. It helps analyze key accounts – both qualitative and rule-based. It also provides account intelligence through external web sources. The creation of a strategic account plan is integral to such software. It has productivity tools like presentation, export, plan trackers, and in-app training/adoption. The executive leadership should use key account management software to analyze aggregated data of multiple accounts to make the right decisions. Organizations that base their revenue growth on key accounts are guided by a key account management software that prompts insights to expand key accounts.
Triaging Key Account Management
Triaging. The Free Dictionary explains Triage as, “A system used to allocate a scarce commodity (food / medicine), only to those capable of deriving the greatest benefit from it. Triage is used in hospital emergency rooms, on battlefields, and at disaster sites when limited medical resources must be allocated” I will excuse you if you thought we were going anywhere near the above situations. That isn’t the case. The focus remains Key account management (KAM). Triaging is useful in addressing the ambiguity associated with Key Account Management’s critical first step i.e. selecting key accounts. Identifying Key Accounts Successful strategic account management requires a strong start. Identifying key accounts is one of the first critical steps. There are several ways to approach this of course. A good starting point would be to locate the stage of Key Account Management the organization is at. Is it an advanced practitioner of KAM/ Just getting started? Somewhere in the middle? Here are some more considerations Offer – Wouldn’t you differentiate key accounts from the rest of your customers? Lifetime Value – Key accounts should not only show revenue potential but also margin expansion. The existing current contribution will also be key. Service complexity – Key accounts have custom requirements that warrant varying degrees of service. Defining a key account, is well, key. Often, it isn’t clear and leads to ambiguity. Ambiguity Determining shortlisting criteria for selecting key accounts isn’t straightforward. Some factors are black and white, making for clear decision-making. Given the inherent complexity in key accounts, ‘grey’ is what will confront decision-makers, often. They would be lucky to get away with less than 50 shades of ‘grey’. To deal with this, university researchers in the strategic account management space were quick to start a ‘Science’ vs ‘Art’ debate. While the debate continues, triaging could help cut through some of the ambiguity. Triaging Prioritizing key accounts is necessary, but not sufficient. Triage is vital. During natural disasters and medical emergencies, teams have to decide – who really needs help, who doesn’t need it at all and who can wait. That also means the very difficult decision of deciding to give up on those who can’t make it. True, it does not entirely solve the ambiguity problem in selecting key accounts. But, it does move the needle forward in sticky situations. Approaching Triage DemandFarm proposes a ‘triage framework’ for key account teams who are still deciding which accounts to include as part of their key account management strategy. The framework is not recommended to decide on existing key accounts. ‘Demoting’ key accounts is a sticky subject and beyond the scope of this article. Key account teams would appreciate how easy it is to include companies as key accounts compared to managing and growing them – or worse, ‘demoting’ them. The DemandFarm ‘triage framework’ is best suited to helping KAM teams answer the following question.“ Who should not be a key account?” It is one way of approaching the meaningful identification of the most valuable accounts Table heading – Triage Framework (sumender to make an image of the below table) Broadly, there are 4 factors categorized as external and internal. The above table is a suggested triage framework that will guide organizations in answering the question, “Who should not be a key account?”. External Factors External are those factors that are dependent on the business environment and market conditions. These are as under. Market Position – Rate your account on the basis of its current market position and its future potential. Is the market growing? Is the company account growing its market share? Is the account lagging competition? Innovation Orientation – How is the account responding to innovation? According to the theory of ‘Diffusion of Innovations’, where does the account fit? Are they innovators, early adopters or laggards? Are they ahead of the curve or prefer to follow? Internal Factors Internal factors are those that are deemed to be under your control when dealing with the account. Strategy Influence – Do we have enough control to influence the current and future business strategy of the account? Will they take and value your opinion for key business decisions? Would we be a vendor or a strategic partner to the account? Operational Complexity – Will the account management be transaction-intensive? How easy is it to get approvals? What organization do we need to develop to deliver on the scope? What is the intensity of the existing relationship mapping with stakeholders and their colleagues? Do we see opportunities for margin expansion? Scoring the Framework The triage framework also contains scores and weights for scientific decision-making. The following scale is suggested. Score from 1 to 10 (1 – least favorable; 10 – most favorable) Weights or Percentage should not exceed 100% for all the 4 factors combined It is pointed out again that this score is only to help identify a “non-key account”. It is suggested that organizations pursuing key account management, should clearly define a threshold score below which an account would be rendered as a “non-key account”. At the same time, a score above the threshold will not necessarily make an account ‘key’. Finally, this is just a starting point – getting into the exercise, one will find several relevant variables to add to the grid. Will a key account management software help? Thanks to big data engine and predictive analytics tools, the white space opportunity exists to make the ‘selection’ and ‘triage’ steps, a bit scientific. Automatically capturing quality data and developing scoring mechanisms (similar to the above framework) to identify key accounts could make key account management methodical and predictable. Have we arrived there, yet? You could try triage to answer that question. If you liked the blog, you can also read an Interview with Adrian Davis, President- Whitestone Inc.
Impact of Presidential Elections on Key Account Management Strategy
Who do you think would be the next President of the United States? Any change that happens in the US economy substantially affects the world economy. In the past, the US economy and markets have responded well to the elections when the results have been predictable. However, this time things have been very unpredictable. The Times has called it “the most surreal Presidential campaign in modern times.” The very fact that Mr. Obama is not running again for President is a very crucial factor. If you are a senior executive running the P&L of an Enterprise IT (Information Technology) outsourcing company, I can imagine your nervousness. Over the years, while successfully helping numerous enterprise companies enhance their sales effectiveness through DemandFarm, we have realized that Key Account Management is highly useful for Enterprise IT outsourcing companies. This is because great relationships between the enterprise consumer and IT service provider are what get them more and repeatable business. These Key Accounts (or set of enterprise consumers) for these IT services companies correspond to key sectors such as Automotive, Healthcare, Pharmaceuticals, Infrastructure, Technology, etc. Each of these sectors might experience a boom or slack due to the government’s tax policies, economic reforms, etc. Let us take a few examples to explain this. The Democrats and Hillary Clinton have been quite keen on health care reforms. If Ms. Clinton comes to power, analysts anticipate the further development of ‘Obamacare’. This can be a boon for life sciences companies and healthcare organizations such as managed care facilities, hospitals, insurance providers, and medical technology companies. If one or more of your Key Accounts happens to fall into these categories, you might want Ms. Clinton to win. Now few sectors might not do as well under Democratic rule. Take pharmaceuticals for example. The Clintons have fought to lower pharmaceutical prices for a long time. During his time as President, Bill Clinton took a pledge to stop drug companies from price gouging and his administration took measures to stop that. Hillary Clinton’s campaign announced in September that they plan to “hold the pharmaceutical industry accountable and rein in drug costs.” If we look at the other side of the picture now, if Republicans come to power oil and natural companies may benefit. Mr. Trump is quite serious about oil’s significance to the American economy and wants the country to be energy independent. Trump administration could increase new pipeline construction and drilling, which might result in increased supply and low oil costs. This could also result in more business for oil equipment manufacturers. There is a possibility that Trump may lift the current ban on U.S. oil exports. While things may seem good for oil and natural gas companies, clean energy companies could face setbacks because of the obvious reasons. If you are a senior executive running the P&L of an Enterprise IT outsourcing company, thoughts about which other sectors not mentioned here might perform well or suffer would be crossing your mind. What will happen to my Key Account that falls into Pharmaceuticals or Renewable energy sectors? Should I be asking my CEO to lower the targets for my team for this FY in the next meeting? And finally, who is leading the election race right now? To be honest, five days before the final election result, not even the best analysts can answer these questions with 100% confidence. Also, even after the results are announced you will have to wait for few months to see what policies the new president and government are following. However, one thing is clear – your Key Accounts need some pretty watertight planning and managing in these uncertain times. Key Account Management Technology or KAM Tech can come to your rescue. KAM Tech is a Key Account Management software or a set of tools that helps the key account manager manage and grow Key Accounts. If you have complex B2B offerings, to get consistent chunk revenues from your Key Accounts you need to go much deeper, do a proper analysis, make an actionable plan, and govern those accounts strategically. Just closing the first few deals is not enough, you need to farm and mine into those large accounts for deeper and wider engagements. DemandFarm has been able to solve this problem for hundreds of enterprises. Just imagine a solution that integrates with your existing systems such as Salesforce and you get fantastic analytics without putting in any extra data. Armed with key account management tools such as White Space analysis, farming and mining effectiveness, financial analysis, communication patterns, etc. you can build a powerful and actionable account plan. In short, you can be prepared for any situation that might arise. Still, thinking about whether KAM Tech can help you? The elections may be too close to call, but this one is a no-brainer. Experience it today, and sit back and enjoy the outcome of the elections, knowing you got at least one thing under control.
The Key Account Management Secret No One Tells You About
Key Account Management is necessary for the organization’s growth. Let me share its secrets. An Old Friend Brings Up An Old Challenge A few months ago an old friend from business school reconnected with me and wanted to meet up for a chat. During the evening, I was happy to learn that he is doing well in his career – so well that he is looking after close to half of his company’s major clients – quite a feat. Once all the congratulating was over, though, I could hold back no longer and had to ask, “so, how do you ever sleep at night”? With all the complexity that each Client entails, managing one is tough enough. And here, my friend had several Key Accounts, albeit with an extremely competent team of Key Account Managers to work with him. But the fact remains it could not be a cakewalk. ‘Yep. It has been more than tough. For a while there I had given up sleeping at night! And in all those waking hours, I have been giving it much thought. So this is why I am here today. Sometimes you need to undo what works to get the formula to get better and sometimes you just got to maybe go back to the basics”.Me (antennae on high alert for some juicy insight about Strategic Account Management ) “Tell me all about it!” Casing The Conundrum “You know the drill with Key Accounts. Each Account Manager is the king of his castle. As long as it ain’t broke, you do not try and interfere as their Manager..you just look at the numbers and keep your thumb up. PEOPLE…(he paused meaningfully).. is the key to Key Account Success. It is all about relationships mapping – their relationships with clients and internal stakeholders – and Intel – in their head and their laptops, emails, wherever – you know the drill. Of late, my level of dependency on these people had been bothering me. You know, in spite of our best efforts to create a desirable work culture and environment, I have no guarantees on how long any of them will stay with us. If even one of them leaves, it would take me months to rebuild what may be lost – if at all I can rebuild it to the same level. This was what kept me up at night.There has to be a way to take Account Management from person dependent to process driven..but that would mean taking away the very essence of Key Account Management – which is that each Key Account Relationship is owned, grown and nurtured by a dedicated Manager who had the freedom and flexibility to meet all his Key Clients’ needs in the most customized, individualized way! Quite a conundrum!And what’s more, (he was really on a roll now, my friend!) my Key Account Managers are all highly experienced professionals…they have been doing what they do for a long time..and they are darn good at it…but it is difficult to get them to work in ways other than what they are used to…they see it as a disruption to their work and often it’s quite a challenge to get them to participate in anything like that. Recently we spent a bomb on a sales excellence methodology training and everyone said they really enjoyed it – but guess what..once they went back to daily life, it was business as usual – my Ops guys sifting through a million different files and presentations to make sense of what was going on with each Account, trying to stitch together the big picture for me, you know…how could we operationalize all that we developed in the methodology training in a coherent way across the board? You know, given that whole conundrum we just spoke of…how can we possibly……institutionalise the core KAM processes?” I finished for him.“Exactly. How can we? (pause) Should we?” That was then That conversation left us both with a lot more questions than answers but in the time since then; I took this challenge back to our team at DemandFarm. Anything that keeps KAM professionals up at night keeps us up at night, so we spent a lot of time working on the basic question – can- and should- we attempt to operationalize the core Key Account Management model to improve efficiencies, effectiveness, and governance in large B2B organizations? And if we did find a way to do that in our Key Account Management Software, would it be adopted by KAMs? Would it take away from their ability to customize and improvise the way they managed and grew their Key Accounts?We have spent several months tearing into this question and its implications. We have looked at it from many angles, many perspectives. The pros and cons of doing such a thing. And slowly, we did see the light at the end of the tunnel. It was time to set up a meeting with my old friend.
What Kind of Icebergs are your Key Accounts?
B2B Key Accounts are typically large global enterprises, with interest across verticals, several lines of business, complex organizational structures, plenty of staff movement across geographies and entities and significant regulatory dynamics. So it’s obvious that the solutions offered to such Clients are equally complex, high value and typically medium to long run. While that kaleidoscopic level of complexity is mind-boggling in terms of management, it is also an indicator of the endless possibilities to build deeper and wider engagement with the Client…across verticals, across geographies, across buying units. If a Client has made the cut to be listed as a Key Account and be managed by the elite Key Account Management Squad, then it’s assumed that they are either high performance- high potential Accounts or High- Potential- Low (current) value Accounts (that need developing).In this post, I’m focusing on the ‘High Potential’ piece of the equation. How do we unlock all that potential in our favor? The visible potential and the invisible potential – i.e., both parts of the iceberg. If we lose a Key Account like that, it can unbalance the entire ship, even possibly sinking us. However, if we find a sustainable way to harness the potential it offers, of what lies above and beneath, then we are well on our way to winning with KAM. Unlocking the true business potential of a Key Account involves being a good hunter (spotting available opportunities for revenue – the visible part of the iceberg) and a good farmer (nurturing white space opportunities for growth and value creation, till they are ripe for harvest- what lies beneath). At DemandFarm, we call the latter Account Farming. Ok- with that said, the question is- how? What areas of Key Account Management play the biggest role in unlocking the business potential of Key Accounts? Here are some that come to my mind..I’d love to hear from you on others: Relationship Management Now, this is my number 1 pick for factors impacting Account Farming. I’m referring specifically to people: who are the people that matter in this Account and how can our relationship mapping with them be leveraged for growth? Large B2B companies have matrix structures with complex, often complicated relationship networks. People move around hierarchically, geographically, across verticals and buying units, and sometimes even functionally. So what are the key focus areas? First, is knowing the right people in key roles, their formal and informal affiliations, a predisposition towards significant issues, hierarchy, etc. Second, it’s about connections – connecting the right stakeholders at the Client end and internally, leveraging the right relationships at the right time, for the right opportunity Third, it’s about investing in building and nurturing the right relationships at all levels- gatekeepers, influencers, and decision-makers included – for the mid to long term Finally, it’s about capturing all of that into a format available to all internal stakeholders. Leaving it in the Account Manager’s head makes you vulnerable, but it’s virtually impossible to keep tabs on all of this in real-time, without a technology enabler Data Management This is a close second to Relationships. Winning with Key Accounts is all about client-centric intelligence and insights. So it’s important to address where the data comes from, what needs to be mined and how it needs to be managed. But the secret sauce is qualifying the quantitative and quantifying the qualitative. Remember that old saying – not everything that can be measured counts, and not everything that counts can be measured. In my eyes, knowing what to quantify and what to qualify is the secret to spotting business potential. It’s about having your eyes on the right metrics and building the right models to act on critical qualitative indicators. The right technology can make this process smoother. Even more important is enabling KAMs to leverage insights without spending inordinate time steeped in data. This involves: Leveraging data already available in other systems such as CRM to generate real insights – at DemandFarm we call it the Data consumption vs. data Creation approach. The former minimizes pressure on the KAM to be filling in forms and capturing data. Real-time data available in one format at one place with one click: shockingly, even today, much time that should be spent building relationships and doing strategic work is spent in housekeeping tasks like collating and formatting data from various sources, generating reports manually, etc. Account Planning How customer-centric we are is revealed in our Key Account Planning. And how customer-centric we determine how well we can unlock business potential. There is no way to widen and deepen engagements with Key Accounts if we don’t plan with an eye on the entire landscape and white space – including everything about Client plans, pains, and opportunities, competitors, regulatory constraints, etc. Opportunities for growth and value creation are uncovered if we know what the Client aspires to, and how they plan to get there. The process of Account Planning needs to go beyond the process of annual planning. Internal Collaboration Strategic Account Management is a team sport – everyone needs to be on the same page to harness potential effectively. Lots of wheels need to be set in motion to capitalize on medium to long-term value creation opportunities. How well we are able to manage data to spot opportunities; building an internal business case to go after the right growth areas; setting clear expectations and buy-in from internal stakeholders; spending time on collaboration rather than clarifications and explanations, institutionalizing core key account management processes to avoid surprises and improve accountability – are all crucial indicators of a collaborative team. The right platform can make the process of collaboration seamless. Got some more you’d like to share? Write into us at [email protected]