This document provides an overview of key account management. It defines key terms like key account and key account management. It identifies the basic elements of key account management as identifying, analyzing, and selecting relationship strategies for key accounts. It describes the nature of the job as becoming close to decision makers, ensuring quality service, and motivating clients. It also outlines the skills, competencies, and level of qualification needed for the role of a key account manager.

1. Key Account Management
Presentation Question: 12
Selling Strategies and Practices
Presented by :
Karl Campbell

2. Overview
 Objectives
 Definition
 Basic Elements of Key Account
Management
 Nature of the Job
 Nature of the Selling task
 Skills and Competences
 Level of Qualification
 Conclusion
 References
 Summary of Article
 Article Review

3. Objectives
 Define key terms
 Identify elements of KAM
 To explain and increase awareness of
what key account is
 Identify the skills required for Key
account management
 Make aware the nature of the job of key
account manager
 Distinguish between key account
management and sales engineers

4. Definitions
 What is a Key Account?
◦ “A customer in a business to business market
identified by a selling company as being of
strategic importance” (Millman&Wilson, 1995)
 Any customer that is considered prestige
or have a high sales potential
 The 20% of a firms customers that provide
80% profits

5. Definitions cont.
 What is Key Account management?
◦ The management approach adopted by
selling companies aimed at building a
portfolio of loyal key accounts by offering
them, on a continuing basis, a
product/service package tailored to their
individual needs. (McDonald et al.,2000)
 Key account management is about
managing the future (Cheverton,
2001)

7. A Key Account

8. Basic elements of KAM
 Identify key accounts
 Analyze key accounts
 Selecting suitable relationship
strategies for them
 Continuously develop operational level
capabilities to enhance the
relationship

9. Nature of the Job
 They are tasked with making the clients
happy by providing good quality service
◦ Eg. For a company providing services like
telephones, communications or even supplies
all their printing requirements and needs. The
key account manager has to ensure that his
company provides up to scratch and functional
hardware
 Become PR agents to gather information
 Become a “Charmer”
◦ Charm your way through your contacts so that
you don‟t get easily dislodged by your

10. Nature of the Job cont.
 Be very close to contact persons and
decision makers of the accounts you
are assigned.
◦ Knowing their birthdays and anniversaries
if possible, and recognizing those dates.

11. Nature of the Selling Task
 Key accounts must be treated better
than the average
 Skew allocations of resources more to
key accounts
 Have to ensure quality and individual
service every time
 Need to be successful at their task or
else lose a portion of profits

12. Skills and Competences of
KAM
 Strong communications skills
 Excellent selling skills
 Ability to motivate and lead
 Good negotiation and customer service
skills
 Analytical skills
 Intrapreneurial ability
 Good presentation skills
 Good understanding of the industry
 Good organization skills (Royds, Muchira)

13. Level of Qualification
• Associate's degree or a bachelor's degree
 Business Administration or Bachelor of Arts
• Sometimes have a Master's of Business
Administration
• Most employers prefer candidates with
three to five years experience in a business-
related position.

14. Conclusion
 A key account manager handles the
most important accounts in an
organization. These are considered
important because of their profitability
and strategic significance. You have to
possess several skills and
competences to perform the job of a
key account manager and have a
certain level of qualification to hold the
position.

15. References
 Cheverton, P.(2001) Strategic Customer
Alliances. London: Pitman.
 McDonald et al. (2000) Key Customers. How to
Manage them properly. Oxford
 Millman, T. & Wilson, K.(1995) From Key
Account Selling to Key Account
Management. Journal of Marketing Practice
 Royds, T. (2007) Key Account Management: The
role of the Sales Manager
 Muchira, M.( n.d) Job Description for Key Account
Manager retrived from
http://www.ehow.com/about_6576220_job-
description-key-account- manager.
 Fulcher, L.(2010) Why Key Account Management
and Recession were made for each other

16. Article Summary : Why key account
management and Recession were made for each
other
 According to Laura Fulcher a key account is not just the biggest
account but should also be the one with the most potential. She stated
it was obvious that it was harder to find a customer than to keep one,
and what is much less understood is the difference between active
customer account management and just „looking after your customer‟.
One of the first myths when talking about key account management is
the Hunter/Farmer paradigm which means that getting new business
focused around new customers and all that is required for the existing
ones is effective farming. She highlighted that a tool used to expose
this approach is wallet share analysis which is how we establish the
difference between what customers spend with us as opposed to the
completion and in getting sales people to think this way converts from
the need for farming to hunting within the account.
 Evidence according to the writer shows that as times get difficult
buyers become more hesitant, that is staying with what they know
which makes it harder to gain new business. However if sales people
have a key account approach to their most prestige customers the
potential for increased sales is considerable. The word potential is
important in that a large, low potential account requires very different

17. Article Review
 The article:
◦ Defined who a key account is
◦ Identified the need for a key account
approach in sales
◦ Briefly identified the relationship between
economy and buying behavior
◦ Concisely explained the concept of
potential as it relates to a sales account
 The article confirmed prior definitions
of key account and its importance to
sales people/businesses and has
further cemented this to knowledge