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There is now increasing evidence that good Global Account Management (GAM) can lead to significant improvements in profitability. In particular, excellent GAM companies have gone beyond developing a different operating model for their group of Global Accounts to establishing different models for each Global Account. In this article we consider the rich experience of DHL in applying GAM principles to its Global Accounts and describe the payoff that such an approach has delivered over time.

It is widely accepted that having “the right people” in your Key Account Management (KAM) program is a cornerstone of success.  This is especially true of the Account Manager who sits in the middle of an interlocking web of internal and external relationships.  It is also widely accepted that there is a shortage of outstanding Account Managers who can operate within this environment very successfully – especially at a global level.   However, time and again we see vague and unsupported definitions of what the role of the Account Manager is and the competencies inherent to fulfilling it.

If organizations are to win the Account Manager Talent War they need to know what they are fighting for.  A large part of the solution rests with the company’s KAM Competency Framework.  This is the Bible of what the job is and the sort of person that needs to be developed to perform it.

Leif Schwan arrived at BC components in August 1999. “I had been bought in by the new management team to try and change our approach to our major customers” It had only been 8 months since BCc had become a stand-alone company and there was clear need for a change in the approach towards our major/global customers.

Leif explains. “In some senses we were too close to Philips and there was a cosy belief that we would always be their preferred global supplier.” However, The customer base also includes companies like Nokia, Siemens and Alcatel.

In 1993 the new MD of a global aerospace manufacturer formed a small task force to undertake a thorough marketing audit of the business and recommend a strategic agenda to improve its competitiveness. From this team of two salesmen, two engineers, a graduate and a consultant came the beginnings of a major change program to introduce global account management to the whole company. The Account Management program was to take five years and touch every member of staff around the world.

Jones Lang LaSalle is one of the largest providers of commercial real estate and investment management services in the world. In 1997, the company realised that it needed to introduce a more structured client management approach, based on internal and external best practice, which harnessed, managed and measured the way it served its international clients across Europe.

As a way of addressing this challenge it established the European Client Relationship Management (ECRM) programme. ECRM followed a deliberate path that carefully selected those clients suitable for pan-European management and developed specific client strategies for improving service delivery with them.

“It is undesirable to believe a proposition when there is no ground whatsoever for supposing it is true.”Bertrand Russell, British author, mathematician, & philosopher, 1928 Why should a client believe us just because we say our solution is great? Sometimes we get caught up in our own hype. What is the evidence?   There are three steps to follow to gather the evidence and create measurable value propositions that work.

In the February 1999 edition of this Journal, Edmund Bradford described the concept of Total Customer Management (TCM) and how it can lead to significant changes in profitability for key account relationships. It was also stated that a foundation for effective Key Account Management is an effective Channel Strategy.

“Within a market segment, ownership of the relationship with each and every customer should be well understood. This means that everyone knows which customers are owned by telesales, which by the salesforce and which by the key account managers.

Distributors, value-added resellers or dealers may be owned by any of the above or by a separate team. Interactions and conflicts between accounts are understood and mitigated in the channel strategy.”

Using Account Profitability to Upgrade Customer Relationships

The importance of knowing the profitability of your strategic accounts is well known to most businesses. Yet most businesses are also struggling to get a decent account profitability system in place. Few have formally linked their account profitability system to strategic account manager training programmes. How many then use this capability to drive out supply chain waste and upgrade customer relationships? This is the story of how one company has proved the payoff that hard work in getting such measurement in place pays off significant dividends not only for the supplier, but for the customer relationship as well.

It is widely recognised that one of the single most important drivers of profitable and loyal customers is the Key Account Manager (KAM). A quick glance at the target revenues (and profits) that these KAMs are tasked with delivering makes them powerful determinants of the entire company’s performance. But KAMs often complain of feeling isolated and unsupported by their company.

It is widely recognised that one of the single most important drivers of profitable and loyal customers is the Key Account Manager (KAM). A quick glance at the target revenues (and profits) that these KAMs are tasked with delivering makes them powerful determinants of the entire company’s performance. But KAMs often complain of feeling isolated and unsupported by their company.

They are vague about their role and responsibilities and too often feel under-trained and unable to cope with the dynamics of the marketplace and the demands placed upon them.   In this, the first of two articles, we will look at how to properly define the job of a Key Account Manager and someone’s ability to do it. In the next article we will look at different ways of closing the skills gap.

At the beginning of March 2004, SAMA held a Pan-European Conference in Nice, France under the theme the Art & Science of Strategic Customer Management. The event attracted a large number of delegates from over 50 organisations including Belgacom, Cisco, Hitachi, MasterCard, Motorola, Siemens, Vodafone and Xerox. For many participants this was the first SAMA event they had attended, underlying the continued success of SAMA in attracting new people. The two-and-a-half days were packed with informative sessions from practitioners and consultants. This article will highlight some of the common themes that kept the discussions going during the day…and into the wine-soaked evening

Increasingly, businesses are recognising that the demands being placed upon them from their Key Accounts are quite different from those of their other accounts.

There is a growing recognition that new approaches are required to manage these accounts.

The principles behind doing this effectively might appear quite simple but, in fact, require major changes across the organisation.

Consequently, very few companies claim to be satisfied with how they measure and manage their key account relationships.