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June 2, 2011
Key Account Management: Avoiding the “Bow-Tie” Resource Approach
By: John Staples
The questions are:
When it comes to KAM & GAM, most of the companies competing for the business offer good products and services, so what is the difference maker? It’s not only the people within the account team but the depth and breadth of the client relations.
The common mistake made by most companies is that after the initial sale the level of resource involvement tails off. The “key” to any key account program is developing and maintaining the relationships long after the initial engagement.
Some may say “thank you for stating the obvious”, others may say, “why do I care I’m not incented to go beyond the initial product or solution offer”. Let’s face it the traditional bow-tie relationship (figure 1) is simple, provides a high level of control and typically creates no surprises between the buyer and seller points of contact.
The following are just 6 reasons the traditional bow-tie approach fails or does not yield the value planned for from the Key Account:
Figure 1 The bow-tie relationship
Adapted from Cheverton, P: Global Account Management and McDonald M, Millman, AF, and Rogers, B: Key Account Management: Learning from the supplier and customer perspectives
The solution to the traditional bow-tie approach is the cross functional team matching buyer & seller resources (expert to expert), educating, learning and understanding (Diamond Relationship: figure 2) the value each party provides. The result; you’re viewed as a “problem solver”, developing “trust” and considered part of the team not an outsider:
Figure 2 The diamond relationship
Adapted from Cheverton, P: Global Account Management and McDonald M, Millman, AF, and Rogers, B: Key Account Management: Learning from the supplier and customer perspectives
The 4 success criteria of the Diamond Relationship are:
Some may say you know when you’ve arrived when the teams on both sides understand their roles, purpose, requirements, and the program plan. From a seller perspective you know you’ve arrived when you’re invited to internal meetings by the buyer involving annual planning, strategic direction or meetings slightly outside of your core but where the client believes you can add value or at a minimum wants your opinion.
So we are developing our key account diamond approach, aligning resources, and getting invites to meetings outside my core competency, how do I measure the success of the relationship? In my next post I will discuss the details of the key account score card.
John is the global leader of SBI’s account management business unit. As such, he and his team help clients across 19 verticals drive top line growth and operational efficiency in sales and marketing.
John’s marketing, sales and product expertise span a multichannel strategic approach. He has an unyielding focus on strategic and key account development, which enables strategic alignment between all functional team members in order to reduce acquisition cost and increase lifetime value.
His broad experience in sales, marketing, product and engineering allows him to bring a unique problem solving approach to his team and clients. As he has discovered through decades of experience, clients are often distracted by the symptoms of a larger problem and overlook the root cause of it.
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