The Highly Effective Key Account Strategy

The Key/Strategic Account Manager’s growth strategy plan is influenced by Richard Rumelt and his 2011 book ‘Good Strategy/Bad Strategy’

Rumelt believes that good strategy:

1. Focuses on critical issues and decides how to address them
2. Requires research, analysis, hard choices, decisive planning and action
3. Identifies and leverages your competitive advantage

The three components of a good strategy are:

1. Diagnosis – what is going on – where are the opportunities?
2. A Guiding Policy – what should be our positioning – how will we take advantage of the opportunities?
3. Coherent action  – what must we do by when?

The Key/Strategic Account Manager’s Scorecard presents a set of core components and their elements set out as objective statements.

These components and elements are generic and have been identified in consultation with many companies with successful account management operations.
The Account Manager is able to score him/her self against each element and so identify where additional attention should be given.
The Scorecard is inevitably generic. It is likely that an individual company will require variations and, if helpful, we can work with you to create a bespoke version for your team.

Structure

The Scorecard structure follows the three requirements of a good strategy – note that most of the effort is at the start in Diagnosis

There are eight components to the Growth Planning aspect as follows:

Diagnosis – What is going on?

KA Background Knowledge – what is the KA doing?
KA Performance – how is the KA doing?
KA Strategy, Objectives and KPIs – how does the KA plan to grow?
KA Supplier Processes and Requirements – how does the KA want to work with suppliers?

Guiding Policy – what is our position?

Our Stakeholders – who should we work with?
Our Growth Opportunity – where can we grow?
Our Compelling Value Proposition – how do we grow?

Coherent Action – what must we do?

Our Strategy, Objectives, KPIs and Plans.

The ultimate test of a good strategic growth plan is that it gives us:

A comprehensive assessment of what is happening and the implications for KA and supplier.
A detailed review of the KA’s own Objectives/Plans/Needs/Concerns for the company and then business unit, team and individual as appropriate.
A clear understanding of how the supplier will add value – the business case to show how the KA is better off commercially and/or financially.
Clarity about what the Account Manager wants to achieve by when.
A clear and agreed Action Plan for the coming months.