Share Account Management Results Internally!
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We’ve worked with global companies embedding account management frameworks and these companies continue to be successful. What drives that success?
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Managing your most strategic customers requires faster and smarter decisions
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You live in changing times, and your decisions with your strategic accounts need to be faster, smarter and relevant to key decision makers.
Read MoreDo your KPIs prevent value creation?
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Competition in the B2B world has never been fiercer. With more companies fighting over every contract, the sales teams are now laser-focused on the next sale and holding on to each customer, whatever it takes. How organisations measure their employees, and what behaviours they reward add to the laser-focus on short-term gains.
Read MoreWhat will losing a major customer cost?
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In July, CEO Sigma Healthcare Mark Hooper announced losing a contract worth $1.7 Billion and in the next financial year earnings would half to $50 Million. Sigma distribute products to 400 stores for My Chemist and Chemist Warehouse and could not negotiate a new contract with their biggest customer.
What does this mean for Sigma?
Read MoreCustomers you can't afford to lose: How will their Procurement department manage you?
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Customers you can't afford to lose are those customers who supply a good portion of your revenue or profit. Or they can be customers who are growing faster than the rest of the marketplace. The thought of losing one of these customers scares you so much that you might feel tightness in your stomach.
Read MoreStrategic is Beyond the Present!
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With the SAMA annual conference in Florida fast approaching this is a good time to share an insight from our book Managing B2B customers you can’t afford to lose about managing rewards and insights within strategic account management (SAM).
Read MoreHow not to improve your business results
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Saving costs is good, improving productivity is good, increasing sales is good, executing strategy is good, more growth is good and more profit is good. Well, experience shows it’s easy to make savings on a spreadsheet, it’s a little harder to announce the changes, and it’s tough to deliver the improvement in profit.
Read More5 Reasons Companies don't Quantify their Value
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Todd Snelgrove now Founding Partner at Experts in Value, was previously the Global Vice President of Value for SKF. During his 20 plus years in the industry, he has identified five reasons why companies do not take the time and effort to quantify their value and equip their sales teams or account managers with the tools and techniques they need to discuss value with customers.
This extract is taken from The Creative Negotiator by Stephen Kozicki.
Why can’t you quantify and prove value?
Read MoreFour Strategic Insights from Value-Based Healthcare
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What insights did I get from attending last week’s Medical Technology Association of Australia’s (MTAA) summit on Value-Based Health Care?
Read MoreJoint Customer Planning Creates Real Value
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With the MTAA Value Summit quickly approaching and World Book Day next week, I thought I would share an extract from my successful book with Gary Peacock: Managing B2B customers you can’t afford to lose. This extract concentrates on creating value through joint partnerships.
Read MoreFocus on Growth_Now! [Part 2]
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Companies are spending more time on how to compete in competitive markets using value. Four factors give best companies a competitive edge that drives growth:
- Intimately manage your top 10 – 20 key clients.
- Identify and manage your exceptional & strategic suppliers.
- Focus on your unique value proposition for your market – your competitive edge.
- Align throughout the company around the top 3 factors, always— allocating resources, developing talent & managing operating costs— for growth.
In an earlier blog, we explained the first two factors that drive growth. In this blog, we will expand on factors 3 and 4.
Read MoreFocus on Growth - Now!
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By Stephen Kozicki & Gary Peacock
Over the past three years, the world has changed dramatically, and forever from digital disruption, Brexit and Trump. Your industry and your top clients are feeling the stress as their markets change, fast. These fast changes mean that your business needs to be more agile in response to the market. For companies unprepared for these changes this means lower revenue and lower profits.
Our blogs are usually short and punchy to grab your attention. This blog is a little longer than usual because delivering growth is just too important and too urgent to reduce the ideas down to a page, so we have split it into two parts.
To Grow – Act Now!
Read MoreWhat should you include in your account plan and why?
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Let's deal with the 'why' first. Everyone is talking about the era of big data. The account plan is about insights, not data, and it is about how to manage a top account in a very competitive marketplace. A key to the account plan is to use it as a living document to drive value with key stakeholders and not just ticking a box for the 'call' ratios on this account.
Read MoreAre your Account Managers capable of Strategic Account Management (SAM)?
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It is surprisingly difficult to predict how your account team will adapt to a more strategic way of managing their accounts, and the more influential role they will play in the company. Until your SAM program is underway, you won't know who will make the transition.
Read MoreHow do smart people make decisions? [Limit your time and act]
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Imagine you have a meeting with seven senior managers. The task of the meeting is to choose four customers to manage differently for the next 24 months. How long will it take to decide which four customers? Are you talking hours, or maybe days?
Read MoreHow Structure Affects Strategic Account Management
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Many companies work in silos, geographically or by business units. Implementing a company-wide initiative like Strategic Account Management (SAM) poses many challenges, particularly around the main resource - staff.
So, for leaders of companies with these siloed structures getting the whole company aligned around strategic customers, and committing time, money and people can be a major challenge.
Read MoreReduce Price Pressure: Focus on Value
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Companies are increasingly finding that their traditional value proposition is falling short. The strength of their brand has less value in the buying process, and competition is intensifying from well-resource established players and emerging niche players. Pressure to reduce prices is now the norm. So, margins are deteriorating and profits are shrinking.
How can you stop this?
Read MoreSAM isn't selling [Strategic Account Management]
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Most global B2B companies have realised they need to manage their major customers - who represent most of their future revenue and profit - differently to the rest of their customers. Why? Well if you want to create opportunities to grow with your major customers, and earn the right to keep doing business with them, you need to offer much more than the average supplier. How can you do this?
Read MoreDo your account managers have the capabilities for planning strategically?
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Managing accounts strategically is different to managing accounts operationally. Some of the differences are highlighted in this blog.
Read MoreWhat is the critical skill for your Account Managers?
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You can find lists of competencies for account managers, for example from the Strategic Account Management Association (SAMA). Many of these list the technical knowledge needed. However the most critical skill an account manager needs is persistence.
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