Tag: Process

The Ultimate Guide to Global Account Management: Framework, Strategies, and Best Practices

In the competitive landscape of international business, there was a company called WorldWideTech. With a strong presence in several countries worldwide, WorldWideTech had made a name for itself as a leading provider of cutting-edge technology solutions. As the company expanded its operations, it had high hopes for continued growth in the global market. However, the path to success was proving to be more challenging than anticipated. The management team quickly realized that they were facing a number of obstacles in their quest for global presence.  Among the challenges was gaining visibility into various aspects of their strategic accounts, leveraging best practices from different teams, and institutionalizing processes and systems to ensure smooth operations across their international offices. The situation was beginning to look dire, and the company’s leaders knew that they needed a solution – and fast! This is where Global Account Management (GAM) comes into play. This approach offered a comprehensive framework that would help WorldWideTech tackle its challenges head-on and achieve its growth objectives. Intrigued by the potential benefits, the company’s management team decided to give GAM a try.  By adopting a strategic approach, they hoped WorldWideTech would be able to build stronger customer relationships, increase sales, and ultimately strengthen their business. With a clear understanding of their global accounts and customized strategies tailored to each market, they would be able to overcome the challenges of cultural differences and local business practices.  This Ultimate Guide to Global Account Management helps with exactly that! It provides the tools and knowledge to take Global Account Management to the next level and unlock your business’s full potential. Read Now: 4 Ways To Optimize Your Global Key Account Management Understanding Global Account Management Embarking on the Global Account Management journey may seem a bit daunting at first! But here’s a breakdown of what it includes, the importance it holds for businesses and an overview of a comprehensive Global Account Management framework.  What is Global Account Management? Global Account Management (GAM) is a strategic approach to managing and nurturing relationships with key customers across multiple international markets. It includes the alignment of sales, marketing and customer service efforts to deliver a consistent, tailored experience to global clients. GAM aims to optimize the value generated from these key accounts, fostering long-term partnerships and maximizing profitability by understanding the unique needs of each market and customer. Importance of Global Account Management for Businesses It is crucial for businesses looking to expand into international markets to implement Global Account Management. Here are some reasons why: Sales growth: By nurturing relationships with key global accounts, businesses can capitalize on upselling and cross-selling opportunities, driving revenue growth. Customer retention: Strong account management practices result in improved customer satisfaction, leading to higher customer retention rates and reduced churn.  Competitive advantage: Effective GAM strategies allow businesses to anticipate customer needs, stay ahead of market trends, and differentiate themselves from competitors. Streamlined operations: GAM encourages cross-functional collaboration, ensuring that various teams within the organization are working towards common goals. This leads to more efficient operations.  Risk mitigation: By understanding the unique needs and preferences of each global market, businesses can better navigate cultural differences and local regulations, mitigating potential risks. Overview of Global Account Management Framework An effective Global Account Management framework is composed of several key components. When these are executed together it results in business success in international markets: Account segmentation: Identify and prioritize key accounts based on criteria like revenue potential, strategic importance and growth opportunities. Account planning: Develop customized plans that outline objectives, strategies, and account items tailored to the unique needs and preferences of each global account. Cross-functional collaboration: Encourage collaboration between sales, marketing, customer service and other departments to ensure excellence in customer experience.  Global Account Management Performance metrics: Establish clear metrics to measure the success of your GAM strategies viz. customer satisfaction, revenue growth and customer retention. Cultural adaptation: Train your global account teams to understand cultural differences, navigate language barriers, and be respectful of local business practices. This helps build stronger relationships with international clients.  Continuous improvement: Regularly review and adjust your GAM strategies based on performance metrics, feedback and market changes to ensure continued success.  Let’s take a look at some important aspects of the Global Account Management framework to ensure that your business thrives in the global arena. Key Components of Global Account Management Framework A strong framework will better help you navigate the world of Global Account Management. This framework serves as the backbone of your international success. It will also help you navigate the many complexities of managing global accounts.  Identifying and segmenting global accounts Before diving in headfirst, it’s crucial to identify and segment your global accounts. This process involves recognizing key customers. These are customers that not only show the most potential for revenue and growth but also have strategic importance. By prioritizing these accounts you’ll have a better understanding of how to allocate resources. You can also tailor your approach to each client’s unique needs, ensuring maximum return on investment.  Developing account strategies and objectives After your key accounts are identified, you will need to develop customized strategies and objectives for each. This involves understanding the specific needs, preferences and expectations of each global account. Once you have this clarity, craft account plans – outlining objectives, tactics and action items customized to each customer’s requirements. This personalized approach will strengthen customer relationships and enhance customer satisfaction and loyalty. Establishing cross-functional collaboration and communication The success of your Global Account Management efforts relies on cross-functional collaboration and communication, this means ease of information sharing between the various teams involved in managing global accounts. Having regular touchpoints, sharing progress, and discussing challenges ensure that all departments have a clear understanding of what’s going on. They can, therefore, work together to ensure that your global clients always receive the best experience.  Measuring and tracking performance metrics Clear performance metrics need to be defined to ensure that your Global Account Management strategies are delivering the desired results. Identify key

Understanding the Key Account Planning Process

The Key Account Planning Process Nurturing existing customers is a time-tested way of improving business, and for good reason: people who are already in business with an organization are more likely to understand the strengths and advantages the partnership can present. The odds increase while selling to an existing customer, by four to five times – showing how vendor organizations can achieve exponential growth by prioritizing key relationships. And like any relationship, digital tools can help enhance the experience. While B2C organizations have been trying to mass-personalize for years, B2B sales teams can achieve the effect with relatively lesser effort, because the target audience is limited to a number of stakeholders. Creating a key account plan for important accounts develops an effective strategy that fosters an environment of mutual growth.  The ‘What’ of Key Account Planning Process Before understanding what key account planning is, The definition of what ‘key’ accounts are should be established. This is important because not all organizations have the same goals: for some, a key account might be the one with multiple sales opportunities, and for a smaller form – a customer with very high potential might be a key account (even if they’re contributing less). Key customers can also become vendor organization’s evangelists, refer new prospects to the group, and champion vendor’s products because of the difference it makes to their work. A key account plan shows the way to keep these clients’ needs fulfilled. It can be seen as a map that shows the current status of the partnership, what can be done in the future, and what steps can be taken.  As Key Account Management adapts to a fast-paced digital environment, how do you foresee its future? ● What has changed in KAM post-COVID? ● What are the top contributors to a successful KAM program? ● What are some of the key skills required for effective KAM in the future? ● How will digital KAM change the selling experience, going forward? ● What are the kinds of tools important for KAM today and tomorrow? Watch the video below to understand the shifts in the Key Account Management journey. The ‘How’ of Key Account Planning Process Key accounts can be moderate to big projects, and takes a few hours to get started. Once the Account plan and details are in place, the duty of the sales team of the vendor organization is to keep it updated so that the information stays relevant. The process starts with Account overview, which defines the information that is relevant to the account plan. The information leads to setting up of Objectives, which provide insight into the client’s needs, paving way to develop a set of goals or objectives keeping the customer’s targets and vision. Setting objectives allows us to understand how the Solution should be presented. These solutions should be worded/framed or presented in such a way that they answer the questions posed by the customers’ objectives. The Action plan details out how to reach the destination, and earmarks clear responsibilities that provide a defined timeline for task completion. Sub-tasks are also captured in the action plan, if the project involves many stakeholders or teams that need to sign off, they need to be mentioned in the action plan too. Change management is about evaluating positive or negative outcomes of the action plan and assigning a value to it. This gives an understanding of what forces are acting against change, and devise ways to overcome them (or abandon the pursuit if the cost is high). Implementation plans are presented to the customer based on the information and insights gathered previously, So that an agreement can be reached in accordance with the action plan, ownership of tasks, important dates, and other factors. Review of the plan decides the frequency, and the element to be changed in the key account plan. The plan should be flexible enough to accommodate changes like attrition, budget variations, department changes, etc. Depending on the scale of the project, key account plans can be reviewed at any frequency – from weekly to quarterly.   The ‘Why’ of Key Account Planning Process Key account planning affects the bottom line by building long-lasting relationships, creating trustworthy referrals, and improving bottom line – key accounts are spending 33% more than the market average. The results are because of improved customer experience – A Harvard Business Review article noted that customer satisfaction went up by 20% within a few years of the introducing key account management programs, resulting in a 15% profit increase. A Stanford university research shows that Key Account Management programs that have existed for longer than five years, report double the results. Key account management also frees up time of sales executives, so that they can pay the same attention to non-key clients too. Key account management software introduces automated processes and systems into the workflow, while improving efficiency and ensuring equal attention to all clients. Choosing key accounts for key account planning The challenge for many organizations aiming at key account management is defining what ‘key’ is. Selecting the right customers necessitates buy-ins across the organization on the metrics to be used. Some steps that can be taken to ensure the choices are alright, are: Collaboration between different teams can align goals and responsibilities, and results in better solutions for client issues. The act of deciding what services to include should not ride with only the sales team – as the services provided for key customers like priority support, interactions with developers, and others won’t be fulfilled by sales team members. Having those team representatives on the panel while deciding on what services to offer key customers, can result in a perfect customized solution. The teams involved will also understand how they should contribute to the requests of the key clients, and can raise requests for any additional work hours or resources. A collaborative approach aligns the expectations of internal stakeholders, and helps in designing a winning key account program. The act of collaboration gains more prominence

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. 

Sales Account Planning – A Step by Step Guide

Sales Account Planning What is a Sales account plan? A Sales account plan is sort of like a guide with all the critical information a sales team wants to close each of their crucial accounts and keep them for the long run. It is more often used to establish sales objectives for the team and develop strategies necessary to achieve them. Companies of all sizes may use variants of account programs based on the industry, type of client, and sales team structure. ‍ If you have ever been to a restaurant where the host includes all the detailed information concerning their valued guests about the interests, relationship, and buying habits that an add-on to the experience, then you’ve seen a sales account plan in action. Think of your account as guests along with sales account planning as a way that you show how much you understand and value your guests. Sales account plans may include a range of information, including company size, key decision-makers, timelines, and also a listing of the company’s competitors and the business’s market share relative to their competitors, as well as their strategic decision-making process. Steps to prepare a Sales account plan Successful sales account planning requires more than just filling out a form. It requires strategic thinking and a clear understanding of what your client needs. Outline the business objective The First step is to outline the objectives by understanding the organization’s current mission and vision, the industry trends, the market potential. Mapping these data with the sales acceleration goals and the product/service offerings of the company can help a sales team set up their objective. Define the target clients The next important step is to analyze the clients with the necessary tools to find the most profitable and lucrative prospects and customers defined by industry, region, product, etc. This analysis can help the sales team know the challenges and hunt for profound growth opportunities to grow the revenue. Build your strategies and tactics List your overall objectives for the accounts and plan how you will get to your goal. It must answer the questions like, “What are our objectives, and what’s our overall direction to achieve them?”. It must include the goal build that takes the overall growth objective into account and builds up the components of how the team’s going to reach that objective. Select the necessary tools for account analysis Understanding the accounts, analyzing, planning, and delivering the right solution for the right customer requires rigorous efforts at the backend. But this can be simplified by employing proper account planning tools with advanced features. Assign the KPIs Build a Performance Dashboard that sets milestones and tracks the progress to those milestones; it also helps identify any adjustments that need to be made. It must answer the questions, “How have we performed? How should we adjust?” Key components of the Account analysis It’s getting increasingly difficult and complex to understand the client business to answer this question: How much will the client be ready to spend on our product? Successful salespeople must dig deeper into the complexities to solve the puzzle. A list of analyses over the client’s business with the previous year’s data can help not only answer this but also can track new opportunities within the accounts. Learn More: Opportunity Planner by DemandFarm boosts tracking capabilities in 65+ opportunities for Dairy MAX 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 plan based on the account positions. You can segment accounts based on the account health score to understand them objectively. 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. Competition Stacking 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 strength and weakness of competitors along with the analysis of customer spend vs wallet share White space 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 whitespace analysis Benefits of Sales account planning Better Win rate Increased understanding of customers’ business Shorter sales cycles Better customer loyalty Increased deal size Better executive access Identify non-competitive deals DemandFarm’s Account Planner DemandFarm’s Account planner offers integrated account planning inside CRMs that makes sales account planning ridiculously easy. It helps in achieving a deeper understanding of your Key accounts through improved data visualization and qualitative analysis. Salesforce is one of the most popular customer relationship management tools in the world and our products are Salesforce native which means Salesforce Account Planning becomes a breeze.

Key Account Planning Simplified

If you are a key account manager, I understand what you go through every year during the account planning process. You want the key account planning simplified. Jacob is responsible for building the key account management strategy and executing the plan to achieve annual targets. Bridging the gap between planning and execution is a challenge, always. The even bigger pain point is getting started on and building the plan itself. He is required to spot the real opportunities for value creation and growth across the length and breadth of his Key Accounts. All this tends to become very overwhelming. Typically, this situation reaches a crescendo towards the end of the year when key account managers end up spending a month or two, preparing account plans for the next year. This is thanks to complex methodologies and visually appealing PPT templates that most of the times make the simple; complex. I am dumbstruck. I strongly believe that key account planning can be simple, and exciting. I encourage all key account managers to peruse the following checklist. DemandFarm has done its best to simplify. You will find this simplicity also reflected in the Account Planner. Do give Salesforce Account planning and MS Dynamics Account planning a shot when you are logged into your Salesforce or MS Dynamics instance. Key Account Planning Checklist The As-Is Account managers simply jump into the key account planning process. Investing time and focus to understand the current state of key accounts is a valuable intervention capable of giving the key accounts a much-needed direction. Knowing win/loss areas, active opportunities, the orientation of the contacts in the accounts, and the accounts’ market position with respect to the competition are valuable markers to establish the As-Is. Identify whitespace opportunities Once the as-is is done, key account managers have a clear sense of where the current growth opportunities lie. Juxtaposing those opportunities with competition and mapping them with internal capabilities opens up the ‘whitespace’. Simple. Align the sales process to the buying process B2B buying has changed. CEB had a data point which said, “57% of the purchase decision is complete before a customer even calls a supplier.” On similar lines, SiriusDecisions says, “67% of the buyer’s journey is now done digitally.” Therefore, Strategic account management Plan has to build strategies that proactively seek out opportunities. Getting an account landscape which identifies buying centers in the account and the ability to map them with internal products/solutions can align sales to the buying process. Learn More: Opportunity Planner by DemandFarm boosts tracking capabilities in 65+ opportunities for Dairy MAX Align the Plan to the annual account targets Account targets count. At the end of the year, it is the only thing that counts. Ironically, during sales account planning and execution there emerges a tendency to do more. This often distracts the account managers from the targets. Account planning and execution-only have to ensure strict adherence to strategies and initiatives that are directly linked to account targets. Nothing else matters. Not even a Metallica concert. Use a real-time tool The problem of making account plans in a PPT is this – it is passive and remains passive through the life of the account plan. It is only seldom that the KAMs revisit the PPTs to align their align and adjust their annual account plans. And it isn’t that the KAMs don’t want to. Updating account plans becomes an operational problem in an ever-changing environment. Dynamic, responsive and real-time updating account planning tools like the ‘Account Planner’ can support account managers by saving them from operational grunt work. How would you rate the account planning template& process of your organization? Simple or complex? What initiatives have you taken to simplify? What worked? What did not? What technology tools were leveraged to simplify and improve the process? If you’re interested in transforming your sales post the pandemic, explore our blog on Sales Acceleration in Account Management and how it can help you grow your business in 2021.

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.

Setting Up A Key Account Management Process in 9 Steps – Part 1

The title may make it all sound easy, this process of setting up Key Account Management as a process in 9 easy steps, but you and we, both know it is not easy. However, the sooner begun, the better done. Let’s cut to the chase and start knocking out the 9 steps easy and quick. In this part I, we will look at the setting up part. In Part II, we will look at running and the review part. Portfolio vis-à-vis profits: Every business decision needs to be weighed and analyzed for its ability to make a profit. Similarly, the portfolio that will come under the purview of the KAM process needs to be precisely analyzed. You need to make sure that the business sectors, lines that you are in, are deliberately chosen; you need to know why they are chosen and whether they are there for their profit-making capabilities. In business, there is no room for happenstance or chance. Every decision has to be a deliberate one. Understanding the customer in-depth: Dissecting the customer on a whiteboard is a good idea. This will help you know who your customers are? Who is good and who is bad? What makes them so? What are their needs – specify them? What are their loves and pet peeves – professionally and in terms of your products? How much are they worth to your business? Detail their behavior patterns when they make key decisions regarding your product or category- new buys, renewals, moving to a competitor? Why do customers buy from you? What are their deepest fears, issues, and challenges? Remember, God is in the details! Relationship X-ray: A relationship scan is always good to maintain the health of the relationship or improve it. What insights has the relationship mapping of your key accounts provided? How is it seen within your department and within the organization? Do you have the right talent mix within your team to service these customers? Can you accurately or at least closely put a number on the longevity of the relationship, are you aware of the issues involved and the history? How are your key accounts distributed percentage-wise, in your total share? Do you have data and insights on possible opportunities for developing more business? Draw up a Key Account plan blueprint: This blueprint should clearly state the main direction, opportunities, and priorities for each Key Account. It should have a direct link to customer information and should be built as a collaborative effort between internal and external stakeholders. This should then be made available and accessible to all involved in the account. It is a good idea to check if you have had the customer involved and if he has been cued into this plan. You will also need to be clear which information is important and which is not; and also be clear about the source of this information and the source of having it regularly updated and in real time if possible. In the next part, Part II, we will see how to run and review the KAM process. See you soon!