Key account management : strategies to leverage information, technology, and relationships to deliver value to large customers

176 Pages·2015·5.55 MB·English

by  Herman

THE BUSINESS Key Account Management L Selling and Sales Force
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EXPERT PRESS Strategies to Leverage Information, BO Management Collection
DIGITAL LIBRARIES N
Technology, and Relationships to Deliver A Buddy LaForge and Thomas Ingram,
N
EBOOKS FOR Value to Large Customers D Editors
BUSINESS STUDENTS H
Joël Le Bon and Carl Herman E
Curriculum-oriented, born- RM
Now more than ever, companies are faced with a critical and
digital books for advanced A
challenging truth. Today’s customer is demanding more atten- N
business students, written tion, superior service, and the expertise of a dedicated sales
by academic thought team. Suppliers must make diffi cult choices to determine how
leaders who translate real- to allocate limited resources, including which customers receive
world business experience the highest level of service. Increasingly, supply side organiza- Key Account
tions are working to design and implement key account pro-
into course readings and
grams to meet or exceed these expectations. Key account man-
reference materials for
agement is a specifi c business strategy that involves complex
students expecting to tackle sales processes, large-scale negotiations, and the alignment of Management
management and leadership multiple internal and external stakeholders. This multi-pronged
challenges during their process is anything but straightforward, and the business world
is fi lled with examples of key account programs that have not
professional careers. Strategies to Leverage
achieved the expected results. This book addresses the strategic
POLICIES BUILT challenges facing top executives and sales leaders as they build
strategies to better manage their key accounts. Information, Technology,
BY LIBRARIANS
By leveraging up-to-date research, testimonials drawn from
• Unlimited simultaneous interviews with experienced practitioners, best practices of suc- and Relationships to Deliver
usage cessful companies, along with straightforward practical guide-
• Unrestricted downloading lines for executives and sales leaders, this book can serve as an
and printing instruction manual and toolbox for o rganizations working to K Value to Large Customers
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• Perpetual access for a achieve success through their key account strategies to meet the Y
demand of their key customers. A
one-time fee C
• No platform or Joël Le Bon is a marketing professor at the University of C
O
maintenance fees Houston, C.T. Bauer College of Business, where he also serves U
• Free MARC records as the director of executive education for the Sales Excellence NT
• No license to execute Institute. He received a BA in management science, an MS M
in marketing and strategy, and a PhD in marketing from the A
The Digital Libraries are a University of Paris Dauphine. He has held sales and sales man- N Joël Le Bon
agement positions in the media industry, and worked as a strate- A
comprehensive, cost-eff ective G
gic account manager for Xerox. He has earned numerous awards E
way to deliver practical M
and distinctions for his research and teaching. Carl Herman
E
treatments of important N
Carl Herman has over 30 years of experience in high tech sales, T
business issues to every
key accounts sales, and in senior sales management. He earned
student and faculty member.
his BA degree in economics from Colorado College, and an MBA
from Southern Methodist University. He has held sales and
sales executive positions for fi ve high technology companies:
Unisys, Oracle, Siebel Systems, KPMG Consulting, and Landmark
Graphics, a Halliburton Company. He teaches at the University of
For further information, a
Houston, C.T. Bauer College of Business.
free trial, or to order, contact: 
Selling and Sales Force
Management Collection
Buddy LaForge and Thomas Ingram, Editors
Key Account Management

Key Account Management
Strategies to Leverage Information,
Technology, and Relationships to
Deliver Value to Large Customers
Joël Le Bon, PhD
Carl A. Herman, MBA
Key Account Management: Strategies to Leverage Information,
Technology, and Relationships to Deliver Value to Large Customers
Copyright © Business Expert Press, LLC, 2015
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any
means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any other
except for brief quotations, not to exceed 400 words, without the prior
permission of the publisher.
First published in 2015 by
Business Expert Press, LLC
222 East 46th Street, New York, NY 10017
www.businessexpertpress.com
ISBN-13: 978-1-63157-174-9 (paperback)
ISBN-13: 978-1-63157-175-6 (e-book)
Business Expert Press Selling and Sales Force Management Collection
Collection ISSN: 2163-9515 (print)
Collection ISSN: 2163-9582 (electronic)
Cover and interior design by S4Carlisle Publishing Services
Private Ltd., Chennai, India
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Printed in the United States of America.
To my wife Caroline and our globetrotters
Clément, Valentine, and Mathilde
To my sister Isabelle
who initiates key projects with governments for the less fortunate
—JLB
To Randi and our eight progeny
To Joël who believed we could do this
—CAH

Abstract
Now more than ever, companies are faced with a critical and challenging
truth. Today’s customer is demanding more attention, superior service,
and the expertise of a dedicated sales team. Suppliers must make difficult
choices to determine how to allocate limited resources, including which
customers receive the highest level of service. Increasingly, supply side or-
ganizations are working to design and implement key account programs
to meet or exceed these expectations. Key account management is a spe-
cific business strategy that involves complex sales processes, large-scale
negotiations, and the alignment of multiple internal and external stake-
holders. This multi-pronged process is anything but straightforward, and
the business world is filled with examples of key account programs that
have not achieved the expected results. This book addresses the strategic
challenges facing top executives and sales leaders as they build strategies
to better manage their key accounts.
Through a new approach to the selling center and the buying center
concepts, the text offers sound, experiential solutions to better manage
large customers, resulting in co-creating value for both the supplier and
the customer. Moreover, the authors describe how to leverage customer
relationship management (CRM) technologies to streamline the selling
center and the buying center with more team collaboration, data acces-
sibility, and readiness.
The objective of key account management is to increase the value of
the relationship to the stakeholders of both organizations. To achieve this
value optimization, the authors have integrated the processes/objectives/
planning of key account management and sales effectiveness while lever-
aging information, technology, and relationships. To this end, this text
provides direct, action-oriented answers to the following key questions:
When should a key account program be implemented and when should
it not? How does one align key customer and supplier interests? How to
manage the selling center and the buying center? How is value co-created
for key customers and suppliers? How can complex customer and sup-
plier processes be streamlined through CRM systems to better integrate
the buying center with the selling center? How can key account programs
viii ABSTRACT
maintain and grow market leadership through key account managers’
critical role?
By leveraging up-to-date research, testimonials drawn from interviews
with experienced practitioners, best practices of successful companies,
along with straightforward practical guidelines for executives and sales
leaders, this book can serve as an instruction manual and toolbox for
organizations working to achieve success through their key account strat-
egies to meet the demand of their key customers.
Keywords
Key account management, key account managers, large customers, com-
plex sales, selling center, buying center, buyer–seller relationships, sales
management and leadership, value co-creation, collaborative CRM, sales
technology.
Contents
Acknowledgments ...................................................................................xi
Preface ................................................................................................xiiii
Introduction .........................................................................................xv
Chapter 1 Key Account Management, Organizational
Alignment, and the Selling Center ....................................1
From Treating All Customers Alike to a
Key Account Strategy .....................................................1
Implementing Key Account Management
in Complex and Dynamic Companies .........................17
Chapter 2 Building and Delivering Value to Key Accounts ..............45
Integrating the Selling Center with the Buying Center ....45
Value Analysis and Delivery to Key Accounts ..................70
Chapter 3 Leveraging Collaborative CRM and Technology .............89
The Value of Collaboration and Information
in Key Account Management ......................................89
From the CRM Concept to CRM Value
for Key Accounts .......................................................106
Chapter 4 Business Customer Marketing and Key Account
Development ................................................................115
Marketing Strategy and Analysis
for Key Account Customers .......................................115
From Key Account Development to Market
Leadership .................................................................132
Conclusion .........................................................................................140
Biographies .........................................................................................143
References ...........................................................................................147
Index .................................................................................................151