SEMINAR 1
AN INTRODUCTION TO KAM
PROGRAMME OBJECTIVES
1. To understand the Key Account Concept
2. To learn a process for analysing key accounts
3. To develop an Action Plan for your immediate
product objective within your key account
4. To become aware of the systemic implications
of implementing an effective KAM programme
5. To generate some specific ideas that you can
immediately apply to the management of your
key accounts.
IMPORTANT CONCEPTS IN KAM
• Position and strategy - where am I now, and how
do I move to a better position?
• Strategic, Long-term focus v Tactical short-term
focus
• Win-win
• KAM is an integrating function not an isolated one. It
is cross-functional, not departmental
• Which accounts are key accounts, and what is it?
DEFINITION
Key Account Management is the process
through which you build long-term, win-win
relationships with those accounts that
either currently or in the future offer you
the opportunity to achieve high-value
commercial results.
ACTIVITIES
• Product Management and broader marketing mix
management
• Customer Relationship Management
• Personal selling
• Supply-chain management
• Detailed account information collection / analysis
• Cross-functional team management
• Cultural and structural developments in the
organisation.
A STUDY OF EXCELLENCE
What are the elements of excellence?
1. Know what results you want
2. Engage in continuous planning to achieve those
results
3. Implement strategies and use feedback to improve
steps 1 and 2
• The wonderful thing is that excellence can be
modeled.
• Highly successful people know why they are
successful. They have a system, and it is flexible and
adaptable to change. It is not luck. As Gary Player
says,
• The harder I practice, the luckier I get.
• And, the harder you practice this system, the luckier
you will get!!
SOME UNDERLYING
ASSUMPTIONS
KAM says that individual orders are not enough.
True account success means;
• Repeat business
• Solid referrals
• Long-term relationships
At the heart of KAM is process or methodology.
Necessary to navigate organisational complexity.
THE COMPLEX SALE
A sale in which a number of people
must give their approval or input before
the buying decision can be made.
ELEMENTS OF A COMPLEX
SALE
• Account has multiple options
• Seller has multiple options
• In both organisations multiple levels of
responsibility
• The account’s decision making process is
complex
These conditions demand an overall strategy
towards the account.
3 MAXIMS OF KAM
1. Whatever got you where you are today is no
longer enough to keep you there
2. In a complex sale, a tactical plan is only as good
as the strategy that led up to it
3. You can only succeed in sales today if you know
what you are doing and why.
THE IMPORTANCE OF
CHANGE
If you don’t change you die.
Success is about change. But change is a tough
subject for us. We don’t like it , and usually only do
it when we have to.
Tiger Woods and Gillette are different. They follow
the excellence strategy of continuous development
of their position.
THE SECRET OF PERMANENT YOUTH
KAM STRATEGY: FOCUS ON
THE ACCOUNT
• Differentiate between short and long-term
objectives
• Don’t sacrifice the account for a short-term
objective
• In key accounts, long-term is king
• Focus on the account, not on yourselves and your
functions.
BALANCING SHORT AND
LONG-TERM
• Long-term relationships are about trust and
credibility
• You earn these each and every time you produce
win-results for your account and its representatives
• Long-term success is a function of many
successive short-term transactions
• Our process builds long-term relationships, one
objective at a time.
OUR KAM PROCESS
1. Identify your current position with the account, with
particular reference to your current single objective
2. Improve this position through analysing the following
key elements;
•
•
•
•
The Buying Influences
Strengths and weaknesses
Win-results for the buying influences
Competition
3. Prepare an action plan to improve position and
implement it
4. Begin the process again in the light of feedback.
STARTING POINT - CURRENT
POSITION
Strategic analysis of accounts begins with fixing your
current position;
• Within the account as a whole, and
• For your current product/sales objective
• You are then able to take systematic corrective action
to improve your position
• KAM is about consistently taking action that moves
you closer to producing win-results for your accounts.
Improving your position means building credibility.
UNDERSTANDING CURRENT
POSITION
• Who are all the key players in the account
• How do they feel about you
• How do they feel about your proposals
• What questions do they want answered
• What constitutes a win-result for them
• How do they see your proposals with respect to
their other options?
We will answer these questions in our workshops.
How Do You Feel Now?
Don’t Be Too Confident!
SEMINAR 2
BUYING INFLUENCES
BUYING INFLUENCES
• You are conducting complex sales which require
the input or approval of several people.
• Who are these people, and what role do they play
in the decision to buy your products?
• Do you have a strategic process to identify them?
BUYING INFLUENCES
Look for roles first, then people.
There are 4 roles, each has a different influence on
decision
• Economic Buying Influence
• User Buying Influence
• Technical Buying Influence
• Confidant
One role may be occupied by more than one
person, and one person may occupy more than
one role.
USING BUYING INFLUENCES TO
IMPROVE YOUR POSITION
1. Understand the 4 Buying Influence Roles
2. Identify all the key players in each of these
4 roles
3. Ensure that all players are covered. You must
fully understand and deal with their attitudes to
your proposal
Knowing this information objective by objective can
help you see the big account picture, and balance
the short and long-term.
ECONOMIC BUYING INFLUENCE
Role: To give final approval to buy
Focus: Bottom line and impact on organisation
Asks: “What return will we get on this investment,
and how will it impact the organisation?”
• Only one for any given objective, but maybe a board
• Controls expenditure, authority to release funds
• Discretionary use of resources
• Veto power.
LOCATING THE EBI
Usually located higher up the organisation, but
by no means always the CEO or general
manager.
The person can change from objective to
objective. Hence the value of account wide
understanding . It helps to consider;
1. The monetary value of the sale
2. Business conditions
3. Experience with you and your company
4. Experience with your product
5. Potential organisational impact.
USER BUYING INFLUENCES
Role: To make judgments about impact on job
performance
Focus: The job to be done
Asks: “How will it work for me in my job?”
Often several people in this role
• They use or supervise the use of your product
• Personal and subjective since User will live with your
solution
• Direct link between the user’s success and the
success of your product
• Not securing their support can be dangerous.
TECHNICAL BUYING
INFLUENCES
Role: To screen out
Focus: Match to specifications in their area of expertise
Asks: “Does this meet the specifications?”
• Often several or many people in this role
• They judge measurable, quantifiable aspects of your
proposal
• Can’t give final approval, but can say no based on
technicalities.
CONFIDANTS
Role: To act as guide for a given objective
Focus: Your success with this proposal
Asks: “How can we ensure that this success happens?”
• Develop at least one for each objective. They can be
found in the account, in your organisation or outside
both
• They can provide and interpret information about:
1. Validity of the product/sales objective
2. Other buying influences
3. Other elements of your strategic analysis.
DEGREE OF INFLUENCE AND
RECEPTIVITY
• You need to position yourself with all the buying
influences, but not all are equally important
• You need to assess degree of influence
• The receptivity of the buying influences to your
proposal is also important to gauge
• People only buy when they perceive a discrepancy
between reality and their desired results.
SEMINAR 3
EARLY WARNING AND
PREEMPTIVE ACTION
EARLY WARNING AND
PREEMPTIVE ACTION
• Discovering weaknesses in your position while you
are still able to correct them is a central goal of KAM
• This approach to ‘mistakes’ often clashes with
organisational culture which encourages covering up
weak positions and denial. Beware
• Where do you have a weak position, and how can you
use your strengths to improve your position?
WHAT IS A WEAK POSITION?
1. Missing information about any of the key elements
2. Uncertainty about any relevant information
3. Uncontacted buying influences
4. New members to the account in a buying influence
role
5. Reorganisation.
ELIMINATING WEAK POSITIONS
THROUGH STRENGTHS
Any identified weak position should be eliminated by
leveraging a strength. What are strengths?
• Areas of differentiation that matter to the
customer for this objective, that are not found in
the competition
• Strengths must improve your position for this
objective. Anything that increases your
understanding can be a strategic strength,
provided its an area of differentiation
• The strength must matter to the customer for
this particular objective.
SEMINAR 4
KAM AND THE WIN-WIN
PARADIGM
KAM AND THE WIN-WIN
PARADIGM
• Relationships with your key accounts should be based
on win-win
• All of the other alternatives eventually end in lose-lose
• A win-win relationship is one in which the self-interest
of both parties is served. Anything less constitutes a
non win-win, and threatens your relationship with the
account
• Look at all of your buying influences and ask yourself;
“Are you honestly trying to serve their self-interest? Do
you really want them to win? Do they know you want
them to win?”
WIN-RESULTS
• A Result is a measurable impact that a product
has on one or more of your customer’s
professional processes
• A Win is the fulfillment of a subjective, personal
promise made to oneself, to serve your own
special interest in some special way
• Wins are always different for different people
• A win-result is an objective professional result that
gives one or more of your buying influences a
subjective, personal win
• Results come first, but are not enough
• Accounts get results, but only people win.
CHARACTERISTICS OF
RESULTS
• Positively and measurably affect your customer’s
professional processes
• Either it improves current process or fixes
something that has gone wrong
• It is tangible, measurable and quantifiable
• It can affect more than one person in the account.
ECONOMIC
USER
•Low cost of ownership
•Good budget fit
•ROI
•Financial responsibility
•İncreased productivity
•Profitability
•Smooth out cash flow
•flexibility
•Reliability
•İncreased efficiency
•Upgrade skills
•Fulfill performance
•Best problem solution
•Do job better / faster/ easier
•Versatility
•Super-service
•Easy to learn and use
TECHNICAL
CONFIDANT (WINS)
•Specs Best and product meets
them
•Delivery timely
•Best technical solution
•Discounts/low bids/price
•reliability
•Recognition
•Visibility
•Get strokes
•Make contribution
•Be seen as a problem solver
CHARACTERISTICS OF WINS
• A fulfillment of a conscious or unconscious
promise to oneself. This changes from person to
person and over time for one person
• Wins are intangible, not measurable or
quantifiable. They are more difficult to identify
• They are even more important in an environment
where financial rewards are limited
• Wins are personal. Results can be shared, wins
can’t. The same result can give different wins for
different people
• It is not enough to deliver results alone. You must
also deliver a win for each of the buying
influences.
SEMINAR 5
WHAT ABOUT THE
COMPETITION?
WHAT ABOUT THE
COMPETITION?
• The only competitive strategy that can bring you
success is a strategy in which you keep firmly focused
on the account, objective by objective
• Respect, but don’t obsess about the competition
• Consider the advantages to the account of an
alternative supplier, but don’t neglect your strengths
• Proactive rather than reactive
• Enable the customer to perceive that you have made a
significant contribution to their business
• The value that you add should be something that can
not be obtained elsewhere.
ACTION PLAN
• You have completed all of the workshops on all of
the key elements for your single sales objective
• You have been able to revise your position in the
light of your analysis
• Now is the time to make your Action Plan
• What do you need to do to improve your position?
• What strengths can you leverage to eliminate a weak
position?
• Keep the list quite short. Positions can change in a
blink, and you then have to change your strategy.
SYSTEMIC IMPLICATIONS OF
KAM
• Implementing a KAM strategy will have an impact on
the wider organisational system
• Structure. Eliminating barriers and organisational
boundaries
• Culture. Changing the behaviour of org. members,
encouraging new attitudes
• Systems and procedures. Particularly relating to
performance review criteria, rewards and training
• The skill set of the account team
• Failure to deal with systemic implications severely
lessens the impact of a KAM strategy.
CONCLUSIONS
1. Success needs goals, strategy and feedback. In
other words, a system
2. KAM is a system to enable you to build profitable,
long-term relationships with your important
customers
3. KAM has a long-term focus, based on win-win
4. You serve the long-term interests of an account
objective by objective. This allows you to see the
short-term in the light of the long-term
5. To serve accounts, we need to have extensive, reliable
information about them
6. We looked at what information was necessary by
analysing a single product/sales objective that you
are currently working on
7. The results of this analysis allow you to take the
necessary action to improve your position
8. Finally, we discussed the vital systemic issues
relating to implementing a KAM strategy.