Key Account Management

Key Account Management
Aristoteles Kabarganos,
Managing Partner
Ariston Group Performance Consulting
www.aristongroup.de

What is Key Account Management?
Key account management is a strategic activity
KAM is fashionable but also difficult
KAM can develop beyond partnership to more synergies
There are mismatches between suppliers and customers
KAM does reduce costs and improve quality
A key account manager needs a comprehensive skill-set
KAM needs a customer-focused organisation

Account Management is one part of Sales Excellence
Know your
markets
Developing and managing customers
Plan for
sales success
Finance
for sales
Sales
support
Customer
Management
Management and team leadership for sales
Sales cycle
Creating
opportunities
Effective
communications

Why do companies implement KAM?
Win-loose
Loose-win
Win-win
Goal: win-win-win
Integrated
Interdependent
Strategic intent of seller
Cooperative
Basic
Exploratory
Strategic intent of buyer
Firm
Partners
End-
Users

The Buyers’ View of Sellers (78%)
Unreliable
Devious
Opinionated
Arrogant
Poor Listeners
Big Talkers
The enemy
Untrustworthy
Pushy
Aggressive
Manipulative
Only 18% saw the salesperson in positive terms
Source: Negotiation Resource International ‘Buyer Behaviors’ 2001
(2000 purchasers over 2 years)

What is important to customers?
22%
39%
21%
18%
Source: The Chally Group 2006

What do customers want?
Substantiated value
Total Solutions, not products and services
Outsource everything except their own core competencies

Some KAM skills from the customers point of view
59%
24%
21%
19%
10%
9%
6%

Creating closer relationships with supply and demand chain partners (1)
DIRECTORS
DIRECTORS
From
Marketing
Marketing
Operations
Operations
Information
Systems
Information
Systems
Sales
Purchasing
Supplier
Customer
Adopted from Professor Malcolm McDonald, Cranfield School of Management

Transactional: emphasis on efficiency
Driven by price, success measured by price
Probably multi-sourcing
Easy to exit
Single point of contact
Business relationship only
Very little information sharing
Reactive rather than proactive
Probably low common interest
Organization suits selling company
Reward structure of KAMgrsparamount
Small chance of growing business
Can be stable state or trial stage
From basic key account management

Key-Account
Co-ordination
Supplier
Development
Supplier
Customer
Creating closer relationships with supply and demand chain partners (2)
Directors
selling company
Directors
buying company
To
Marketing
Marketing
Operations
Operations
Information
Systems
Information
Systems
Adopted from Professor Malcolm McDonald, Cranfield School of Management

Both acknowledge importance to each other
Principal or sole supplier
Exit more difficult
Larger number of multi-functional contacts
Developing social relationships
High volume of dialogue
Streamlined processes
High level of information exchange, some sensitive
Better understanding of customer
Development of trust
Pro-active rather than reactive
Prepared to invest in relationship
Wider range of joint and innovative activity
Joint strategic planning, focus on the future
Opportunity to grow business
To interdependent key account management

And from traditional key account categorization
A
Top 15 (in volume/revenue generated)
B
Next 30
C
Next 55

to a more relevant key account categorization ….
Degree of
collaboration
KAM relationship stage
Needs of parties to
KAM relationship
High: collaborative
Realisation of fullest potential
of both organisations
Integrated
Confidence in relationship, stable
& highly evaluated by both sides
Interdependent
Reduction of risk,
ability to forecast
Cooperative
Operational, efficient
transactions
Basic
Low: transactional

… and ultimately to a customer portfolio view
Supplier’s business strength with customer
High Low
High
Strategic:
invest
Future stars: selectively invest
Customer
attractiveness
Volume:
manage for cash
Bread & butter: maintain
Low
Key customer

Key account strategies
Interdependent KAM
Integrated KAM
Exploratory KAM Investin tailoring product
Basic KAM Invest inbuilding relationships
Cooperative KAM Invest inimproving processes
Invest in Jointinformationsystems andfocus teams
High
Customer
Attractiveness
Invest indevolvedrelationships
Maintenance &Consistency
Basic KAM
Co-operative KAM
Vigilanceandmotivation
Low
Integrated KAM
Co-operative KAM
Stage of KAM relationship
Adapted from: “Key Account Management”, Cranfield University School of Management, 1996

Developing strategic plans for strategic customers: the process
Understand the customer’s external environment
Understand the customer’s internal capabilities & resources
Work out the customer’s strategies and its critical success factors for us
Understand our internal capabilities & resources
Work out our objectives & strategies, plus key actions
Agree a process to produce a strategic customer plan

The contents of a KAM strategic plan (T+3)
Purpose statement
Financial summary
KA overview
Client’s CSF analysis summary
Applications portfolio summary
Assumptions
Objectives and strategies
Budget

An example of a key account plan

Another example of a key account plan

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Key Account Management

by Aristoteles Kabarganos on Jan 06, 2010

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